Mirror, Mirror
by Kagerou Fuji
Summary: Fuji falls through a mirror one day and lands in a complete different world. Sometimes, while doing a favor for someone else, you realize that they’re actually doing a favor for you. Atobe x Fuji
1. Chapter 1: The Otherworldly Fall

**Mirror, Mirror**

**Summary:** Fuji falls through a mirror one day and lands in a complete different world. Sometimes, while doing a favor for someone else, you realize that they're actually doing a favor for you.

**Warnings:** Shounen-ai

**Pairings: **Atobe x Fuji

**Disclaimer:** Prince of Tennis is not mine.

-GASP- FINALLY FINISHED WITH THIS FANFICTION! Jeeze, it took me long enough. I think this one's chapters are longer and more detailed than any of my other ones, so if you like that kind of stuff, like me, then it should be better. Well, to me, this fanfiction is better than all my other ones so far. This chapter isn't particularly long, but I promise the chapters after this will be much longer. For now, enjoy this! Thanks for all your support on 'A Kiss to Remember'! It has the most reviews out of all my other fanfictions, with over 160 reviews! I don't think I can break that with this story, mainly because there are less chapters, but if you can review anyway, it makes me feel really good! Please read, review, and enjoy! And I tried not to use 'younger' for Fuji in this fic! XD;;

**Chapter 1: The Otherworldly Fall:**

"Tezuka, would you like some iced tea?" Fuji asked Tezuka. They were both currently sitting in Fuji's room. The window was open, and they each could hear the rustle of the leaves on the tree outside the room. It was quite comforting, actually, on a hot day such as this, to hear the wind blow a bit for once. It was comforting to Fuji to know that the wind still _existed_. It was days like this that made Fuji feel like the weather would never be cold again. The summertime always felt much too warm for Fuji and he'd much rather it be winter. Winter was his favorite season, anyway.

It wasn't technically summer yet, actually, it was just mid-May, but the weather made it feel like summer. After all, if Fuji sometimes didn't believe cold weather existed, then it must be really hot that day. The finals were coming up for all of the junior high school students, and Tezuka and Fuji, as well as many other students that they knew were studying like mad. They both knew that they would probably do well, if not get perfect scores, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

"Sure," Tezuka replied. Fuji smiled and walked out of the room promptly. It was no use studying when you couldn't even concentrate because of the heat.

"I'll be right back," he called behind him, and he could almost see Tezuka's curt nod. Fuji was actually grateful for this study date, however little they might need it. They were at the top of their class, anyway. But it was more alone time spent with Tezuka, so who could complain? Not Fuji, of course.

His feet patted down the stairs swiftly and gracefully. He walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. He looked inside, took out the iced tea, and poured it into two glasses; one for himself and one for Tezuka. Their family made their own iced tea, and they always had some in the refrigerator. Fuji sometimes didn't know how grateful he was for that iced tea.

He then walked up the stairs and back into the room. Fuji just then noticed how hot it really was. Upstairs was so much warmer than downstairs, even when the fan was turned on and the windows were open. He didn't notice the heat upstairs when walking downstairs, but when he walked back into the stifling heat, Fuji cringed visibly. He didn't want to turn on the air conditioning, though, since it would make the house much colder, while not helping his room much. He sighed. It was probably because of his big windows, but he like them there.

"Here, Tezuka," Fuji said and handed Tezuka one of the glasses of iced tea, which he drank thankfully. "I'm sorry about my room being so warm." Fuji wiped his forehead and fanned himself on top of the fan spinning in the room.

Tezuka shook his head. "It's not a problem. I've been here before."

Fuji laughed. "It's cold in the winter and warm in the summer. Quite inconvenient, neh?"

Tezuka said nothing. Study breaks were mandatory for the two, since while they were studying, they studied so much. Believe it or not, Fuji felt very pressured to get a high score on the test. Almost as if he was obligated. But what was a genius to do? With good things always comes bad. Most of the time, though somehow worrying about it actually made Fuji do better. It was strange. Fuji sighed. Today was one of the most beautiful days, too. But they had gotten their fair share of tennis, and now was the time to focus on academics.

The pair sat in silence for a while, just enjoying the breeze and the beautiful weather, though it may be a little too hot for Fuji's liking. He kept thinking that and he couldn't get it out of his mind. No amount of studying could change it, anyway. Fuji looked around his room, and he had to admit, it did need a bit of a clean up. There was something in the corner, though, that he had never noticed before. He couldn't be sure if it was there before or not, or if his sister moved it in.

To confirm his thoughts, Tezuka asked, "What's that?" and pointed to the object in the corner. It looked flat, though Fuji's couldn't tell, because it was covered by a tan sheet. It was something flat and standing. It was about the size of an average seventh grade person, and standing on something, elevating it off the floor slightly.

"Looks like a full-length mirror or something, to me," Fuji said. "I've never noticed it before, or maybe someone put it here recently. I didn't know Yumiko or mom had any extra mirrors. I know it wasn't Yuuta," Fuji said jokingly. "I'm going to go check it out." He stepped over all the little objects on the floor of his room; mostly textbooks and the like. He was soon close enough to touch the object and proceeded to take another step, when Tezuka spoke up.

"Fuji, watch out," he said, but it was already too late. Fuji's foot caught on a book that was sitting on the ground, particularly a Japanese History book, and he fell forward into the 'mirror'. Fuji shouted in surprised and clutched the beige sheet that was draped over the object. He pulled it off and Tezuka saw that it was indeed a mirror, but Fuji was covered by the sheet.

Fuji was falling, and it felt like it was in slow motion. His first thought was, _Oh great, I'm being such a klutz in front of Tezuka…now he'll probably have to help me clean up the shattered mirror, _but that thought changed when he didn't feel himself hit the mirror. He only felt himself, with the sheet, keep falling and falling. He heard Tezuka shout, "Fuji!" again, but he couldn't respond.

Finally, his back hit something hard; like tile or something like that. He thought it was a bit strange, since his room was carpeted. And he never hit the mirror. He only heard, "Hey, who are you, another member of the royal family?" being said jokingly in a voice that sounded strangely familiar. He was still wrapped up in the sheet.

_Royal family? _Fuji thought. What was that supposed to mean? "No, he just fell _through_ the mirror," someone else said. "_Through the mirror. _Isn't that a bit odd?"

"When did that mirror appear there, anyway?" another voice said, though no one paid it any mind as they were more curious about Fuji than the mirror.

Fuji felt that now was the time to look up. He lifted his face slowly, though not uncovering his head fully, and looked around the room. He was in a bright room, tiled with marble and it had fancy molding along the bottom of the wall. There were occasional windows along the walls, providing the room with more than enough light, though it was overcast outside. Pillars standing between the windows surrounded the room, and there were nine cloaked figures in the room and a girl sitting on the floor, who looked a couple years younger than the rest, though Fuji couldn't tell how old everyone was, since they were all, well, _cloaked_. He didn't know where he was or who he was with, but all he knew was that it was _not_ his own room. He looked back, and there was indeed a full length mirror in the corner, exactly the same size as the one in his room that had mysteriously appeared there today.

Fuji pulled off the sheet so that his body was wrapped in it, and he was still sitting on the floor, staring with open eyes. The girl looked up, as did the others, while some were already looking at him. She had black hair that fell a bit past her shoulders and was combed neatly. Her eyes were a dark shade of brown, and she looked like any normal person. She wasn't dressed any differently than someone from the village, and Fuji couldn't tell why she was in the room with the cloaked figures. Suddenly, her eyes widened and she shouted, "That's her!!! That's FUJIKO!!!!!"

"_Fujiko?!!_" all of the cloaked figures then cried out simultaneously. They each began to throw off their own hoods in a very unorganized manner. Fuji then scanned the room from left to right. He found that their faces and hair looked very, _very_ familiar. In fact, they looked just like those of Oshitari, Kikumaru, Jiroh, Yukimura, Atobe, Saeki, Yuuta Ryoma, and finally…_Tezuka?!!_ What in the world was going on?!

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ZOMG! What _is_ going on?! It's something strange, at that! Remember to check back in three days for the next chapter! Until then, please review! Thanks! 


	2. Chapter 2: The Story of the Princes

**Mirror, Mirror**

**Summary:** Fuji falls through a mirror one day and lands in a complete different world. Sometimes, while doing a favor for someone else, you realize that they're actually doing a favor for you.

**Warnings:** Shounen-ai

**Pairings: **Atobe x Fuji

**Disclaimer:** Prince of Tennis is not mine.

Haha, this chapter is definitely MUCH longer than the last! XD;; Anyway, I'm still getting faves but no reviews. That's okay, but I appreciate reviews more! And thank you reviewers and readers! Your reviews make my day. Anyway, for those who bother to read this, here's the next chapter! I tried to keep everyone in character, with the exception of some parts where it actually _states_ that they're acting OOC. Anyway, please read, review, and enjoy!

**Chapter 2: The Story of the Princes:**

_What in the world was going on?!!?! _That was Fuji's exact thought at the moment. Here he was in the middle of a world that was not his own. He had just fallen through a freaking _mirror_ for crying out loud. And hit a _palace_ floor?! Why was everyone cloaked? And_what_ in _heaven's name_ was _Tezuka_ doing _HERE_?! Wasn't he just in Fuji's room a couple moments ago?

His train of thought was broken as Jiroh bounced up to him. "Fujiko!!! We've been waiting for you!!!!" he shouted excitedly. It was strange to hear anyone but Kikumaru calling him 'Fujiko'. Which just triggered the remembrance of another event that bothered him. Had that girl called him a _her_?! '_That's her!!! That's FUJIKO!!!!!_' He remembered it quite clearly in his head.

Then Saeki walked up to him, still in his cloak, and pinched his right cheek. "Fujiko is quite a cutie, isn't she?" he asked the other boys there.

"Uhh…" Fuji started to say, but he was interrupted by Eiji.

"CUUUTEE?!!! Is that all you can say, nya?! She's ADORABLE!!!!" he cried. "What do you think, older brother?" he asked Atobe, who was standing next to him.

"She's pretty," he said simply. "Ore-sama believes that she's quite attractive." Fuji was appreciative of the compliment, but his mind was elsewhere again. Had Eiji just called Atobe his _older brother?!!!!_ Something was _definitely _not right.

"I should ask my older brother!!!" Jiroh shouted. "I'm going to go find him!!!" Then, a thin, pale hand was on his shoulder.

"I'm right here, Jiroh," Yukimura said, chuckling. Fuji looked from Yukimura to Jiroh, and back to Yukimura again. _Brothers?!!?!?!? Just who else was related then?!_

"Guys…" Fuji tried to say again. He saw Ryoma get the hint, though.

"Seiichiiiiii!!!!!" Jiroh shouted. "What do you think of Fujiko?!"

Yukimura walked over to Fuji gracefully and swiftly. He stroked Fuji's cheek. "Her skin is very soft, and yes, she is pretty."

"Hey…" Fuji was about to be cut off again by Eiji, he presumed, but then Ryoma spoke up _loudly_.

"EVERYONE!!!!" he shouted in a very un Ryoma-like manner. "I think Fuji_ko_ here has something to tell us all."

Fuji sighed. "Thank you." He glanced at Tezuka who was still standing in the back of the room. He thought that perhaps Tezuka knew that he was indeed a _guy_. "Some of you may know this, but I'm _not a girl!_" He pulled off the sheet and stood up. "My name is_Fuji Syusuke_, not _Fujiko_, though my friends call me that sometimes."

"I can see why," Yukimura said, smirking and wrapping an arm around Fuji, pulling him closer. "You're _very_ pretty," he whispered into Fuji's red ear. Fuji blushed and shifted uncomfortably.

"Seiichi," Tezuka said sternly. "I think you're making him uncomfortable." Jiroh took hold of Yukimura's arm and dragged him away from Fuji. Well, not really dragged, more _led_. Yukimura winked at Fuji, who again blushed.

"Can someone tell me what's going on here?" he asked. "I was studying in my room with—" but then, he cut himself off. Tezuka was standing right there! What should he say? "—a friend. And I suddenly fell into a mirror that mysteriously appeared in my room today. And this world is completely different."

"You friend was probably Kunimitsu here, I presume," Atobe said, walking up to Fuji this time, though not getting as close as Yukimura had been.

"Uhh…yeah," Fuji said, slightly taken aback. "How did you know? And why are you guys here?"

"Long story," Atobe said.

Yukimura finally quite forcefully pulled himself out of Jiroh's grasp. "Fuji," he said, seriously this time. "Take my hand. I'll show you."

Fuji reached forward and complied without much resistance. But he was quite shocked again, when his hand went right through Yukimura's. Fuji screamed, which was an unexpected act for Fuji Syusuke. He stepped back a bit and tripped over the sheet that was still behind him. He was falling (again) when Atobe was suddenly at his side and caught him. "Seiichi, we don't want to scare him away. Our existence depends on him."

"W—What are you talking about?" Fuji said. His hand suddenly felt very cold. He didn't want to be depended on, no matter how much his personality implied it. Especially to _nine_ of his friends. Their _existence_? Did Atobe mean that virtually, or physically? Fuji took a step back.

"It's not what you think, Fuji," Atobe said. "Not at all. We're not going to _die_ if you don't decide to help us." Fuji breathed a quite noticeable sigh of relief.

"Perhaps we're overwhelming him," Saeki suggested, which was what, inside, Fuji thought, but he didn't really show it. "Would you like to rest a night here or something? We have plenty of unused rooms."

Then Fuji remembered the _real world_ Tezuka. "I should probably get back, actually," he said, taking a couple more steps back, until he was beside the mirror again.

"Oh, don't worry about that," Atobe said, grabbing Fuji's wrist gently. Fuji tried to push his arm away, but of course, his hand fazed right through. Atobe smirked. "Actually, this is quite convenient."

"Keigo," Saeki said, hitting him over the head lightly. "We can touch anything, but nothing can touch us," he explained to Fuji, who nodded. "So," he said, sighing, "I guess it would be quite convenient if we didn't want someone to leave or something, like you."

"How do you have it all figured out?" Fuji said.

"Time in this world may pass, but in your world, it doesn't. Yet, when you go into your world, time passes in this world. Get it?" Atobe said.

"Yeah," Fuji said. "So if I leave now, or even in a day, or a year, no time would have passed from the time I fell into the mirror?" Everyone shook their head.

"Not even one second, nya!" Kikumaru said.

"I suppose there's really no harm in staying, then…" Fuji said. "Seeing as I don't really have a _choice_," he said, putting emphasis on the word 'choice' and glaring at Atobe, who was still grabbing his wrist, and he only smirked back triumphantly.

"He's going to have to go back some time," Yukimura said. "Our mission for him depends on that."

"That? Depends on what?" Fuji said.

"Your ability to travel between the two worlds. It's really a long story," Ryoma said, speaking for the first time since his 'outburst'. "But to make it short, only you have that ability."

"Why?" Fuji asked. It was only natural.

"That's where the long part comes in, but we'll explain to you the major story first, which is about how _we_ got to be like this," Yukimura said. "It started a long while ago, when we were all at a family reunion."

Fuji heard someone say in the background quietly, "We'll let Seiichi tell the story, since he has the prettiest voice to listen to."

Fuji thought about what he just heard for a moment. _Family reunion? Did that mean they were all related? _He still didn't quite get the brother thing, either, because as far as he knew, Kikumaru and Atobe were from different schools, and Jiroh and Yukimura were from completely different _regions_. Yukimura noticed Fuji's look of shock. "Oh, right, we didn't explain to you; we're all cousins."

"Cou-sins?" Fuji said slowly.

"We may not be related at all, the way you know us," Atobe said. "Actually, we're probably not. It's fortunate that you even_know_ all of us. We probably don't have anything in common in your world."

"Of course you do," Fuji automatically said. "You all play tennis."

"Tennis?" Ryoma questioned. It was so ironic, to see that word slip out of Ryoma's mouth in such a confused manner. It even made Fuji laugh, since the Ryoma he knew was so obsessed with the sport.

"It's a sport," Fuji explained, still chuckling a bit.

"Anyway," Yukimura said, "I am Jiroh's older brother, Keigo and Eiji are brothers, Kojiroh and Yuuta are brothers, Yuushi is an only child, and last but not least, Kunimitsu and Ryoma are brothers," he said. "Actually, Keigo is only older than Eiji by a couple of minutes; they're twins, you see? But Keigo isn't fond of Eiji, so he dyed his hair. It fits him, does it not?" Yukimura said, ruffling Atobe's hair, and he only received a well deserved swat in the hand and a scowl.

"Oh," was Fuji's only response. He was shocked to hear all this at one time, but when he looked at them, it made sense. Kind of. They either kind of looked like each other, or perhaps they knew each other well in Fuji's world. It was still strange to think of them as being related _at all_, though. He hadn't heard Yuuta or Oshitari speak almost at all, and it made him wonder. Even Tezuka had spoken.

As if reading his mind, Jiroh bounced over to Yuuta. "Yuutaaaa!!!" he said excitedly. "We haven't heard you say _anything_ since Fuji got here! What do you think of him?"

"Not much," Yuuta said. His arms were crossed and he was scowling, facing away from the group, who were almost all crowded around Fuji. The brunette (Fuji) chuckled. Some things would never change.

Fuji turned back to Yukimura. "Right, family reunion. Go on."

Yukimura nodded. "At a family reunion when we were all very young, maybe four years of age or so. We were all playing in the yard, since we all knew each other. At that time, we all lived with our own parents, and Jiroh and my parents were the _actual _king and queen of the country. But we're all still royal blood. Well, Ryoma was actually only, what, one or two at the time?" Yukimura chuckled, and Ryoma turned away. "You're still only twelve. Don't get too cocky. But for some reason, he was with us, too. Don't know whose idea it was to bring _him_ along.

"Anyway, when we were playing 'treasure hunt', we found a bright orb on the ground. All I remember of it was that it had a bunch of these shatter marks all over it, but it wasn't shattered, and it was all in one piece. And that it had two white streaks around it, but I can't remember the pattern. No one else remembers anything about it. We picked it up, and then something crazy happened. That's where I can't remember anything else."

"I remember this part!" Jiroh said. "I remember there being a really, really bright light. And then there was this white mist that gathered around the nine of us. All of a sudden, it disappeared, as well as the orb, and we thought everything was normal again. And then, we found out soon enough that no one could touch us! But we can touch them, or each other. Only the royal family knows about it, and even then, some of our parents don't even know about it! Now, the townsfolk don't even know about this curse, and we almost never show ourselves outside. Some of us have never even been seen by the common folk."

"That's where I come in," the girl said. "I'm sorry for not introducing myself earlier, since you probably don't know me. My name is Shizuma, and that's all I reveal about my name. I was born twelve years ago, meaning I'm the same age as Ryoma. I am always reincarnated, though. But this is my importance in this castle. I am what you might call a fortune teller. I can see things, but not in the future or past. I can only see things in the present, but I can see anything or anyone that my eyes have already seen. I also have a lot of knowledge about the world, because I existed many, many years ago, too.

"So the first reason the royal family sought me was to figure out what was going on. They found out that the orb was really created by a magical being a very long time ago. The person who created it was very angry, so they cursed the orb with the worst curse that they could think of. It was to be able to love, but not have. And that was portrayed because these nine fine men can love, but they cannot be embraced, or even touched for that matter. And the creator ran off. The creator later died, but was reincarnated through the generations, much like myself. They asked me to keep an eye on the orb, since I can see anything that my eyes have already seen. They told me to not let it out of my sight.

"Guess what? I did. At it was then that the orb was gone. These boys found it in the forest behind their home, and the curse was placed upon anyone in a certain radius. That was what the mist was. Then, the orb was whisked off to a different world. What the orb does exactly is that it separates the cursed one's soul from their body, so that their body, along with the orb, goes to a different world, and their soul stays. So they look real, but when you try to touch them, you can't.

"The creator or a reincarnation of the creator is the only one who can travel between the two worlds without the orb in hand. If I try hard enough, I can hear glimpses of what the reincarnation of the creator is hearing, but I can't see him or her. This is because the creator spoke with my previous incarnations and not me, and they never showed their face. So I can't see them, and I can only hear a bit of what they hear, because he didn't speak with me directly.

"You, Fuji, happens to be the reincarnation, and since I could only hear, I heard Eiji's body in the real world calling you Fujiko a lot, so I figured you were a girl. That's what I told everyone. We have been looking for you for years, only able to hear what other people called you, and what other people have said to you, and even that was limited for me.

"This is the task at hand. We need you to first find the orb, and then bring all of the nice boys' real bodies back into this world so they can be reunited with their souls." And that was where she finished.

All was silence in the room. Not a single person moved; they all wanted to hear Fuji's reaction. This was a crucial moment in their lives, anyway. Fuji took a deep breath. This wasn't overwhelming for him, but it was a lot of information at once. Okay, maybe it _was_ overwhelming, but he got the main gist of it. "So, what you're saying is that the orb is in my world, you want me to get it, and then you want me to bring these nine back into this world. But they can't travel through the mirror unless they have the orb with them, but I can travel through the mirror freely?"

"Precisely," she said.

Fuji sighed. How would helping them hurt him in any way? Okay, so he'd have to go through a series of tasks involving some of the best junior tennis players in the nation, but they all knew him well, so how big of a deal could it be? "No one in the real world knows about this, right?" he asked.

"No, and you probably shouldn't tell anyone. I think you have enough sense to know that," Shizuma said.

"Shizumaaaaaa! We don't want to get on his bad side! What if he doesn't want to help us, then??" Jiroh whined.

Fuji smiled. "Relax, Jiroh. Of course I'll help you guys."

Jiroh's eyes widened to a size that Fuji didn't even know was possible for a fourteen year old. "REALLY?!"

Fuji nodded, and was immediately pounced on by Jiroh and Eiji. He was sent tumbling to the floor by the force. Yukimura leaned over him and stroked his bangs back gently. "That's my—_our_ Fujiko," he said smiling, and Fuji could tell that he had slipped those words on purpose. Tezuka nodded at him.

Fuji looked around the room and found that Atobe had disappeared. Fuji wondered where he had gone, and was about to get up to find him, since Eiji and Jiroh had gotten off of him by now, but was immediately snatched up in the arms of Saeki. "First, we need to get you some decent clothes! Those clothes you're wearing now are so boring!" Fuji looked down and he was indeed wearing only a white t-shirt and khaki pants. His mind was off of Atobe for now, as he was dragged away.

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This chapter was...eh. xD;; I have some better chapter coming up, but they're mostly at the end or middle. But until then, enjoy! And please please _please_ review! Thank you! (By the way, it wasn't my idea to make Atobe and Kikumaru brothers XD;; ) 


	3. Chapter 3: The Realization

**Mirror, Mirror**

**Summary:** Fuji falls through a mirror one day and lands in a complete different world. Sometimes, while doing a favor for someone else, you realize that they're actually doing a favor for you.

**Warnings:** Shounen-ai

**Pairings: **Atobe x Fuji

**Disclaimer:** Prince of Tennis is not mine.

Haha, this chapter is longer than the other two! The chapter start getting long here, so...uh...rejoice? xD;; Anyway, please read, review, and enjoy!

**Chapter 3: The Realization:**

Fuji slipped into the dark room quietly, and almost unnoticeably. The door didn't make a sound as it was opened slightly, and Fuji slid with ease through the door and the frame. After all, his outfit was made of _silk_. How long he was going to stay here he had no clue, but it might be long enough to just recuperate on his thoughts. Surprisingly enough, though, the room was not empty.

As Fuji turned around, he noticed a figure standing at the window, his shadow streaking across the ground in the moonlight. Still standing tall in his cloak, Fuji recognized the figure right away. "Atobe…?" he said. Atobe didn't jump, but he turned around to meet Fuji.

"Welcome," he said.

"Did I walk into the wrong room?" Fuji asked. "I've never been in a…castle before."

Atobe chuckled. "Yeah, you did. This is my room. Your room is the next room over."

"Do each of you have your own wings of the castle or something?" Fuji asked.

Atobe shook his head. "No, we all sleep in the same wing, in case something happens to one of us. The oldest of us sleep on the outside rooms, and the youngest sleep in the rooms in between. We've already prepared a room for you a while ago, and once new furniture comes in that we like, we just get it. Your room is between mine and Kikumaru's, because he's the oldest next to me, and beside his attitude, he's an excellent fighter."

"Fighter?" Fuji said.

Atobe smiled wryly. "This isn't your world, Fuji. Things happen. We get attacked fairly often. You have to know how to fight in our country. You really do. Even the women know how to fight pretty well. We need to protect you most out of all of us, which is why you're between me and Kikumaru. Tezuka's on the other side of our line of rooms, because he is next oldest. And then it just keeps going from their. Ryoma's obviously on the inside, though he's not weak at all, and he's one of our best fighters, too. But our parents insisted it needs to be this way."

"Wow…" Fuji said. "I've read about this kind of world, but I've never been a part of it before. I feel kind of…I don't know. I kind of feel like I'm just a burden to you guys."

"Oh, no, of course you're not. We need you," Atobe said, stepping closer. Fuji smiled.

"I'm touched," he said, looking around the room once again and noticing how dark it was. There were no lights, lanterns, or lamps. No source of light except for the windows. There were occasionally lanterns on the walls in the hallways, but there were no lights in the room at all. "Why don't you have any lights in your rooms, anyway?" Fuji asked.

"No need," Atobe said. He snapped his fingers and a little flame ignited from the tip of his index finger. It lit much more of the room than Fuji thought it would, and now it was about as bright as his room was when he turned his lamp on at night. "Magic. It's essential around here."

Fuji nodded. "I see," he said. "Too bad I can't do it," he said, and laughed. "I'm still a normal person."

"You're the descendant, no, the _reincarnation_ of the finest magician in our country. You should be able to do _something_," Atobe said.

"Nothing," Fuji said. "I wasn't born with it."

Atobe stepped even closer so that he was right by Fuji's side. He took Fuji's hand in his own. "Anything's possible." He made a flick of his fingers and immediately, two little flames started doing a dance on the tips of Fuji's fingers. Fuji smiled.

"That's cool; I'd really like to learn how to do that," he said.

"Oh, you're doing the magic. I'm just doing the spell," Atobe explained. "The spell is a special spell that reflects what mood a person is in; I just have to take their hand. I'm glad you're in a good mood."

Fuji looked once again at the two flames in a different light. They indeed looked happy, but was there something else signified there? Fuji blushed slightly, but the light was too dim for Atobe to see, thankfully. Did he…did he like Atobe? No, that couldn't be. Then why were there _two_ flames? It was the only explanation.

Fuji noticed that the flames recoiled from their lively dance and began to revolve around his hand slowly. Atobe looked at him. "Fuji, are you confused? Tired, perhaps? I've never really been good at reading what the little flames are portraying."

"Tired…yes, that's it. I'm tired," Fuji said. He knew he was lying, but he didn't want to show that he was confused. That might lead him to a question that he definitely didn't want to answer.

"Oh, then why didn't you say so? Let me lead you to your room," Atobe said, letting go of Fuji's hand.

Fuji backed away. "No, it's just down the hall. I think I can get there myself," he said.

Atobe shrugged, not showing any of the disappointment he was hoarding inside. "If you insist." The flame went out, and the room was once again dark. "Don't get lost again."

"I—I won't," Fuji said. He stepped out of the room quickly and into the nice, lit hallway, though the lanterns were scarce.

----------------------------

Yukimura brushed his hair in front of the mirror that was conveniently placed in his room. Well, it actually wasn't placed in his room, _he_placed it there. Each of the brothers and cousins, or princes, had a special power. Atobe could do a bit of magic, and he could summon people from places to where he was. It was quite annoying, actually, because sometimes Yukimura would be in the middle of something, and then he would just appear in front of Atobe.

Yukimura's power was to be able to create anything on the spot in which he could see his own reflection. While standing, or doing anything, actually, he could conjure up a mirror, steel, iron, any metal, glass, ice, water, or anything that one could see their own reflection out of. It was also quite useful, especially in battle if he lost his sword.

He ran his comb through his hair once more, and then stroked it gently with his hand. Perfect, like always. He didn't care if he was about to go to bed. And then he heard something interesting coming from the next room over. He had left his window open, and the other room's window was open, too. Wait, he knew who lived in that room; it was Atobe! Atobe was talking to…listening further, he could hear it was Fuji. Interesting indeed. He created another mirror outside of his room and angled it so that it was shining into Atobe's room without moving at all. Then looking through the mirror that he was previously brushing his hair in, he could see the mirror he just created, and then he could see Atobe and Fuji quite clearly.

"What'cha looking at, Seiichi?" Jiroh said sleepily from the bed.

"Oh, you're awake," Yukimura said. Jiroh had taken a nap after they had all left the throne room. Yukimura and Jiroh had to share a room, because the original architect of the castle hadn't planned to build in another room for Fuji. They could always extend it, but Yukimura and Jiroh had originally felt the most comfortable sharing a room with each other, and they were willing to do it.

"You bet I am," Jiroh said, suddenly more awake than what Yukimura thought was physically possible for someone who was just sleeping a couple moments ago. "Now, what _are_ you looking at?"

"Nothing interesting," Yukimura said slyly, drawing out his words.

"You know I hate when you do that!" Jiroh said. "It makes me want to see even more!" He bounced over to Yukimura and put his head on the blue haired boy's shoulder.

"The other side might work out better; you're covering the mirror," Yukimura said, chuckling.

"Shut up." Jiroh bounced over to the other side of Yukimura's head and once again peered into the mirror. Yukimura adjusted the angle of the mirror slightly so that it was easier for Jiroh to see. "Keigo and Fujiko, is it?" he said.

"You don't seem very surprised at all," Yukimura commented.

"I'm not; Fujiko was looking for him after he changed this afternoon. Because Keigo mysteriously disappeared."

"I thought he was just looking for him because he was worried," Yukimura admitted.

"Exactly! Why would Fujiko be worried about Keigo? Only if he _loved_ him!!!" Jiroh said excitedly but quietly, wary about the thin walls between rooms and the open window. Yukimura laughed and peered into the mirror once again. Atobe was showing Fuji his magic. Feh, Yukimura thought. Showoff. It wasn't _his_ fault that Atobe was better at magic than almost all of them. They were just born that way.

"Jiroh, look," Yukimura said, pointing into the mirror.

"Ooooh!!!!" Jiroh squealed. "Keigo's doing the 'emotion' thing that he does!!! It's soooo cool!!!" He was once again bouncing up and down. "Look! Fujiko must be really happy! There are two little flames dancing around! Isn't it cute?"

Yukimura nodded. _Happiness? That was it?_ Somehow he had the feeling that there was a much deeper meaning in those two flames than just_happiness_. Atobe wasn't the best one to ask about reading the emotions portrayed by the flames, and he just told Jiroh what he thought they meant, and Jiroh believed him. But Yukimura always knew that Atobe was just barely scratching the surface with his so-called interpretations. What could be the deeper meaning behind two flames dancing across Fuji's fingers together? _Together_? Yukimura smirked. Perhaps what Jiroh said was correct after all.

----------------------------

Ryoma sat on the air above the roof. That's right, the air _above_ the roof. He found it much more comfortable than actually sitting on the cold, hard roof, anyway. The wind blew through his hair gently, creating a natural fan that he quite appreciated at the moment. Ryoma had a special power; a power unique from those of his cousins (and brother). Then again, all of the powers were unique, so he shouldn't be one to talk. Ryoma had the power of levitation. In short, he could float. But he could only float himself, and not other objects. He didn't _fly_, he _glided_. Because he didn't flap anything. And he could hover above things without moving. That was what levitation was.

Sitting on air for him kind of felt like sitting on his favorite surface. And since his favorite surface was obviously his bed, chair, or something soft, it always felt like that when he sat on air. So it was evidently more comfortable sitting on air most of the time. And contrary to popular belief, _no_, Ryoma did _not_ move up and down when he was hovering. He didn't move _at all_ when he was hovering. It was just as if he was standing or sitting regularly.

The breeze was, again, very refreshing he found at nighttime. He always sat above the roof before he was going to go to bed. He didn't really know what he did up there; perhaps he just thought about stuff. About anything that ran through his mind that day, or things he could've worded differently, or maybe something that went wrong that day. Today, though, his mind was on one thing and one thing only: Fuji. Ryoma didn't realize how many questions he had for Fuji until now. Of course, a lot of them had to do with his body in the real world, like how it was doing, what its personality was like, etc. But other questions were all about what the real world was like.

Thinking of Fuji, Ryoma swore he heard Fuji's voice at that moment. There was a light on in Atobe's room…well, actually it would just be Atobe supplying his own light. And the next room over, which was supposed to be Fuji's room was dark and empty. Fuji's voice was coming from Atobe's room, which was only a couple meters down from where Ryoma was sitting. He hovered over to above Atobe's room and dropped his head down so that it was in the window.

Atobe was just turning his head so that it would've been face to face with Ryoma had he not pulled his head back just in time. Luckily, Fuji did not see him, either. That was _close_. A moment later and Atobe would've seen him, and a moment earlier and Fuji would've seen him. But from the couple of milliseconds that he had managed to catch, Ryoma saw Atobe doing some sort of magic that didn't light up the entire room, but it was just bright enough for both of them to see. Ryoma could see from outside of the room that the flames were flickering heavily, almost as if they were moving.

There could only be one explanation: Atobe was doing the 'emotion' trick. Showoff, Ryoma thought. Magic was definitely one of the showiest of skills, and that particular spell was definitely one of the showiest of spells. It didn't require much energy, but it did require quite a bit of magical ability. Atobe barely had enough ability to learn that spell, though it was quite useless in battle. But he wanted to learn it anyway. The only other person in their generation of cousins and brothers who could learn that was Saeki, and that was because he _was_ the mage of the family.

The light suddenly went out in Atobe's room and Ryoma heard the door close. Atobe and Fuji…interesting.

----------------------------

Yukimura was still peering into the mirror intently. Jiroh had fallen asleep a couple of minutes ago, and Yukimura was still up. Atobe was, too, and Fuji had left the room just a moment ago. Atobe was staring out the window into the night sky, as if deep in thought. Yukimura saw him finally lift his hands after a long period of not moving at all, and he started to slowly make signs with his hands. Yukimura knew the spell those signs did; he could recognize it from a mile away. He sighed, and the next moment, he was in Atobe's room, sitting next to him on his bed.

"You wanted to talk?" Yukimura said.

Atobe nodded wordlessly.

The signs that Atobe had woven with his hands were the signs to summon whoever he was thinking of. Atobe summoned Yukimura probably the most out of all the royal princes, because they were the closest two that were not brothers. They might even be the two princes closest to each other. Yukimura rolled his eyes, though he knew Atobe couldn't see, since he wasn't lighting up the room in any way. "Let me guess; it's about Fuji, isn't it?"

Atobe nodded again. "And how exactly did you know?"

"I can spy on anyone and anything with a little logic and perfectly accurate placement of my mirrors."

"And what gives you the right to spy on me? I'm older than you; aren't you supposed to show respect?"

"And how many times do you think I've saved your life?"

"And I yours?"

Yukimura smiled. "So we're even. This means I can spy on you, right?"

Atobe lifted his hands and two small flames appeared in them. "And I can kill you?"

Suddenly, a finely crafted sword appeared in Yukimura's right hand. It was shining as if it had just been finished that day, and Yukimura glanced down to see himself on the blade of his sword, smirking at it. Perfect. He held the sword to Atobe's neck. "Want to bet?"

The floor around Yukimura burst into flames, in almost a perfect circle. "Sure," Atobe said, smiling in triumph.

With a flick of his wrist, though, water poured out of Yukimura's hands and onto the ground. "Have you forgotten that I can see my reflection in water, also?"

"All the better to look at _myself_ with," Atobe said, dropping down to trip Yukimura. Atobe's foot met the broad side of Yukimura's blade as it was parried to the side, dragging Atobe along with it (no duh, it was his foot). Atobe hit the wall, but bounced right back up again, ready for battle. He glanced above him and saw his own sword, hanging above the doorframe, and grabbed it just as Yukimura lunged at him.

Blade met blade in a metallic crash again and again. The two were almost evenly matched at swordsmanship, though Yukimura was slowly but surely pushing Atobe back. Finally, when Yukimura was tired of playing around, a sword appeared in his left hand, too. "No fair," Atobe pointed out, while trying to block both of Yukimura's nimble slashes with his own one sword.

"All's fair in love and war," Yukimura said. He knocked Atobe's sword out of his hand in one final blow and sent it clattering against the wall. By this time, Atobe was backed up against the other wall with the tip of Yukimura's sword at his neck. "Now, what was it that you wanted to talk to me about?"

Atobe put up both of his hands. "Alright, you win. It _was_ Fuji."

"I know that," Yukimura said. "Don't think I didn't see you two."

----------------------------

Fuji walked down the hallways quickly to his own room, which was only one room away. Yet, it felt like miles in the darkness. He felt the walls between his fingers and walked slowly along it. He didn't think he'd ever be this afraid of the darkness, but after what Atobe had just said…_This isn't your world, Fuji…we get attacked fairly often…you have to know how to fight; you really do…_he was feeling caught off guard a bit.

He finally felt the first door, and proceeded to open it right away. There it was, inside, a nice room. He took the nearest lantern from the wall of the hallway and lit the one by his bed. There, a lot better. He replaced the lantern and sat down on his bed for a well needed rest. He didn't realize how tired he really was. The flame in the lantern flickered wildly. Fuji lied down on his bed and looked at it for a while, trying to find some kind of a hidden meaning. Who was he kidding? He couldn't do magic. Period.

But then what had he felt back there with Atobe? When the taller boy had held his hand, Fuji had felt something pulse through his veins. He felt a lot stronger than he had ever felt, and he almost felt as if it were…magic, for a lack of better wording. He loved the feeling. But as soon as he had let go of Atobe's hand, it was gone. He didn't want to bother Atobe any more tonight.

Suddenly, Fuji heard a loud clash in the next room…Atobe's room! It was the sound of metal against metal. Fuji had seen a sword above Atobe's door before, but…sword fighting? In the middle of the night? _At this time_? And who in the world would Atobe be fighting with? Fuji was still dressed in his normal cloak, so he grabbed the lantern off of his nightstand and walked through the hallway, feeling much more rushed and confident this time. He placed a hand on Atobe's doorknob, and the sound was getting louder and louder. Fuji pushed open the door a crack.

What he saw inside amazed him. Atobe was indeed sword fighting…against Yukimura? Was it a midnight training session? Wasn't Atobe older…and supposedly better? They were the exact same height, and Yukimura was slowly cornering Atobe, sword hitting sword repetitively, at the speed of light. Fuji knew he would not be able to handle something like that. He didn't belong here.

_He didn't belong here_. Those words ran through his mind over and over. He didn't belong here, he wouldn't be able to handle anything, and he would just be a burden. He didn't belong. He couldn't fight, or do magic. He didn't belong. _He didn't belong_. Fuji's eyes widened, he backed out of the doorway slowly as Yukimura's swords knocked Atobe's sword out of his hand and one was now held steadily at Atobe's neck, as if he were really going to kill him.

Fuji continued to back away until the door in front of him closed. He then fled the path of the room and into the hallway, lantern forgotten on the floor. He didn't know where he was running, or where to. He just knew one thing: he needed to get out of here. _The throne room. The mirror in the throne room_. It was where he had come from. He needed to get there, and he needed to leave. He needed to leave and never come back.

* * *

Cliffie! Sorry, everyone! But I have to make sure you want to read the next chapter, too! So please review! And remember: review before you fave/alert. Thanks! 


	4. Chapter 4: The Magician of Long Ago

**Mirror, Mirror**

**Summary:** Fuji falls through a mirror one day and lands in a complete different world. Sometimes, while doing a favor for someone else, you realize that they're actually doing a favor for you.

**Warnings:** Shounen-ai

**Pairings: **Atobe x Fuji

**Disclaimer:** Prince of Tennis is not mine.

Thanks for all your support, everyone! I'm very happy for all the reviews and favorites! And this chapter is a bit longer, too, so I hope you all like it. It kind of reveals a bit about the storyline. Please read, review, and enjoy!

**Chapter 4: The Magician of Long Ago:**

"What was it you wanted to talk about?" Yukimura asked, sword still poking dangerously at Atobe's neck. But Atobe was too absorbed in the supposed doorway to care. "And what are you staring at so intently?"

Atobe's eyes were focused on the door. More focused than even Yukimura had ever seen them. "Wasn't that…wasn't that just Fuji at the door?"

"Was it?" Yukimura asked, now interested in the doorway, also. His sword carelessly clattered to the ground, not caring if Atobe had just set him up in a trap to corner him or not. He knew Atobe wouldn't lie about something like that. "I heard the door, but I assumed it was Jiroh, or perhaps Ryoma."

"Maybe we should check," Atobe said, not even waiting for a response before walking toward the door.

He swung it open and was about to walk outside, when Yukimura said, "Watch it."

Atobe looked down, and indeed, there was a forgotten lantern on the floor, flame still flickering brightly in the darkness. He stepped over the lap hurriedly and walked into Fuji's room. As he had expected, it was empty, and the lantern was missing. It _had_ been Fuji, and he had left without intending to come back. "Come on," he said to Yukimura. "We have to find him before he finds the throne room." He let a flame explode from his hands hastily to light the way, and it stayed in his outstretched hand.

The two cousins flew through the hallway, almost as if they were actually flying. "Where do you think he is?" Yukimura asked.

"Well, he's not in the throne room already. This castle is huge, and Fuji couldn't have possibly found it in a couple of seconds. _I_ couldn't even walk there so quickly. I don't think he knows where it is, either. So judging by the direction in which the lantern was facing when it was put down, I'd say he went this way."

"And what about the corners?"

"Fuji wouldn't turn a corner when he was blinded by whatever emotion caused him to run."

Yukimura shrugged in the midst of running. "Makes sense." Their cloaks fluttered loudly behind them, though they didn't care, because they knew no one could hear them. "But this hallway just leads to a balcony at the end."

"Then if we run quickly enough, perhaps we can corner him as he walks onto the balcony," Atobe said. They were right, of course, as they turned the corner, because that was the only option, and saw Fuji's cape rippling in the harsh wind blowing outside. He was standing at the edge of the balcony, with his hands gripping the railing.

Atobe stopped Yukimura and he alone made the trip across the balcony to where Fuji was standing. "Looking for the throne room?" Atobe asked quietly, startling Fuji.

"And so what if I am?" Fuji replied lethargically.

Atobe pointed behind him to where Yukimura stood, still not noticed by Fuji. "It's the other direction."

"Thank you for that tidbit of information," Fuji said, as he started to turn away from the balcony. Atobe grabbed his wrist, though, just before it was out of reach.

Fuji turned and looked at Atobe with those blue eyes of his that were almost glittering, even if he was as tired as he was now. "Before you leave," Atobe said, "would you at least stay for tonight? I don't care if you never want to come back, but would you at least stay here for tonight?"

Fuji looked at Atobe long and hard. This was totally and completely different from the arrogant, narcissistic Atobe he knew in his own world. Atobe was being quiet, gentle, and…caring? Fuji's thought, even in the mood he was now, was that if Atobe from his world, or anyone that knew Atobe found out about it, the narcissist would never live it down. And that caused Fuji to laugh, right there, on the spot.

Atobe stared at him with wide eyes. Laughing? Now? He had read enough stories; he wasn't going to be one of those people that got thoroughly pissed and ask him 'what the hell he was laughing at'. And yet, he couldn't resist the urge. "What the hell are you laughing at?"

Fuji was still chuckling, but he said, "Nothing, really. You're expression there, though, was completely different from the 'you' of my world."

"How can you be so lighthearted at a time like this?" Atobe asked, more curious than annoyed.

"Saa…perhaps I have already made my decision," Fuji said softly, falling into Atobe's embrace. "I'll stay here, at least for tonight."

------------------------------

Fuji gathered his things hastily, not that there was much to gather. He just changed back into the clothes he had come in, folded up the clothes that the princes had let him borrow, and placed them neatly on the bed. Fuji looked out the open window (of course it was open, after all, it was just an arch shaped opening in the wall) and noticed that it was overcast and hazy that day. They were pretty high up in the castle and Fuji could see that the ground below him was covered by a thick layer of fog. He figured that the floor of the castle he was on was also hidden by the fog, if he were looking at it from outside. The treetops barely poked out from beneath the 'clouds'.

Fuji stepped out of his room, finally ready. He wouldn't be seeing that room again, and Atobe took his hand outside. "Why are you leaving?" Atobe asked quietly.

"I don't belong here," Fuji said. "I belong in my own world, with my own type of people."

"So you're afraid of not fitting in? Is that it?" Yukimura asked, suddenly appearing on the other side of Atobe. Honestly, Fuji thought, were those two _ever_ apart?

"No, it's not that," Fuji said. "I'm afraid of being a bother."

The two cousins thought that out solemnly and continued to lead Fuji to the throne room where the mirror was that he had first come into this world by. "We're here," Atobe said. The room was quiet, and all that could be heard were the sounds of the steps that the three boys made as they navigated across the room. None of the other cousins were awake, Fuji knew, because he had requested that only Atobe see him off, so that he wouldn't have to see the melancholy faces of the other princes. But of course, he should have known that Yukimura would also be there.

"So…I guess I'll be going now," Fuji said, walking toward the mirror slowly.

"I'm sorry that you can't find it in your heart to help us," Yukimura said. "Perhaps…in another life, we'll meet each other again. Perhaps in that life, we might actually be able to be loved," he continued. "You're a rare beauty, Fuji Syusuke. A beautiful rose…don't forget that."

Fuji was still turned away from the two cousins. He had a hurt look on his face, and his emotions were mixed at Yukimura's last statement. He wiped a tear away hastily, hoping that neither of the other boys had seen it, and stepped into the mirror without hesitation.

As soon as he knew Fuji was all the way through the mirror, Yukimura dropped his sullen façade and smirked. He crossed his arms. "Isn't it disappointing?" he asked Atobe. "That Fuji Syusuke is so gullible. To fall for an act like that, seriously. We could've done better; don't you think so?"

Atobe also smirked. "Oh, we'll _surely _see him again."

Yukimura dramatically pulled aside his cloak so that it flapped to the side, resulting in a loud, striking noise. "Okay, everyone!" he commanded. Eight faces appeared from behind pillars and other miscellaneous objects placed around the room. The eight faces of the other princes and Shizuma. They were all grinning or smiling excitedly. "Plan Get-Fuji-to-Return-to-our-world: COMMENCE!"

------------------------------

Fuji stepped through the mirror gingerly. It was a strange feeling, walking _through_ a mirror. It was almost like walking through air, as if the glass just wasn't existent. Except when you thought about it, you were walking through _glass_, so psychologically, it affected you a bit, and it felt _a lot _different than walking through air. Fuji saw black when his face entered the mirror, but as soon as his whole body was in it, he was immediately sitting on his own bed, next to Tezuka, with a textbook in his lap. _Huh??_

"Tezuka?" he said. Tezuka looked up from his studying at Fuji.

"Yes?" he replied.

"W-What are we doing?"

"Studying, why?"

Fuji glanced at the mirror. Still covered? But how? He had left the blanket in the other world. He knew that time didn't pass here when he was in the mirror world, but when he stepped back into this world, he had expected to actually _step_ into the world. "But—the mirror—? I fell in, and…"

"Are you okay?" Tezuka asked him.

Fuji nodded slowly, partly to answer Tezuka's question, but also partly because he kind of understood. Tezuka didn't remember anything he saw, huh? How clever. Fuji shrugged. Well, it didn't matter now. He wasn't going back, anyway, and he left it at that.

------------------------------

Fuji walked to school with his best friend, Kikumaru Eiji, in the bright morning sun. It was (obviously) a sunny day, not at all like the hazy day he had seen in the mirror world…wait, why was that on his mind? Fuji told himself that he would clear his mind of all thoughts of the mirror world…and Atobe. He would never remember it again. Ever. But was it possible to make one forget about something, though it was only during a period of one night that made such a difference in one's life?

Fuji sighed. He wanted to go back to that world, so badly, so desperately. He missed everyone, and he _had_ promised that he would help them. And Yukimura's words had cut deep into his heart. Had that been the blue haired boy's intent? Fuji's mind was racing. What had they wanted him to help with? Finding some sort of orb…? With 'shatters all over the surface and two white markings, though the pattern was unknown'. He didn't know if something like that even_existed_ in his world. And if it did, it had to be pottery, or something that Fuji wasn't familiar with. It was miracle that Fuji even _knew_ all _nine_ princes in real life.

He finally came up with a compromise with himself. If he found the orb, he'd bring it back to them, and if he didn't, he wouldn't go back. It was as simple as that. But what he _didn't_ know was that a certain nine princes and a younger girl were working behind the scenes to try and get him to come back.

Fuji suddenly felt very, _very_ sleepy. He was almost to the point where he couldn't stand. In fact, Fuji noticed, he was falling. He_couldn't_ stand. Why was he so sleepy? He had gotten a good night's sleep last night. What was going on? His last thought was that it was a good thing that Eiji was there before falling into a deep slumber.

------------------------------

Jiroh grinned widely. "It worked! It worked!!!" he shouted from the corner of the throne room. That was where the nine princes spent most of their time when they were together, since it was a comfortable room in a safe part of their household, and there was enough room in it to fit all the necessities of the nine of them. Plus, Fuji's mirror was in it, and for now, they needed to keep tabs on the mirror. Their plan right now was to bother Fuji in the real world until he figured out that it was them and come back.

And by 'bother', they didn't mean any normal means of bothering. Every one of the princes had a special magical ability, and Jiroh's was to make anyone or anything fall asleep at any time, as long as he had seen their face before. The princes, since they were isolated from almost all of their society because of the curse, had a lot of time to practice their magic, and now they had all reached the most advanced level in their world. So they sought to figure out how to activate the magic in another world. Fuji would be a perfect 'guinea pig' for their experiments, and since their plan was to 'bother' him, it was like hitting two birds with one stone.

"It worked! He's asleep!" Jiroh shouted, sitting up from his pile of blankets.

"Yeah, he is…I've confirmed it," Shizuma said from her table in the center of the room. She was currently looking into a crystal ball, where she saw everything. And since she had already seen Fuji's face, now she could see him any time. But if Fuji came back and learned magic himself, he could block her out at any time he wanted to, which was what the nine princes mostly did.

"Wow, that was quick," Yukimura said. "I'm impressed, Jiroh. You've been practicing, haven't you?"

Jiroh nodded his head. "If I can make Fuji fall asleep in another _world_, then I can make _anyone_ fall asleep!"

"Unless they block you," Atobe said.

"Right, but my spells can penetrate some of the best defenses!" Jiroh said proudly.

"But not all," Yukimura said. "Otherwise, that wouldn't be fair. Even the most powerful magicians can't penetrate all guards, and some of the most powerful magicians also can't guard everything." Yukimura knew a lot about magic, though he wasn't the 'mage' of the family. That was Saeki. But Yukimura was the most knowledgeable; everyone agreed on that one. Every magician could choose which guard spells they could not penetrate, and some magicians chose it to be the weakest ones simply because most of their opponents would not think about using them. Every time they used a spell, they could change which guard spells that they would not be able to penetrate. So, if you were going to use spells quickly and frequently, then you would have to be a _very_ quick thinker, or else you wouldn't be able to hit, because by that time, the opponent would know which guards he had to put up and you wouldn't be able to penetrate any of them. The world of magic was a very fast paced world, which might have been why Fuji had felt so bewildered.

Even with the quick thinking, though, it was still better for any magician to be on the offensive than the defensive. The guarder, or the one on the defensive, would have to guess which guards to put up every time their opponent attacked. They could put up as many guards as their energy let them sustain at one time, and once the guards were removed, their energy would go all the way back up and they would be able to put up new ones. If two very skilled magicians were fighting each other, it was definitely better to be on the offensive because the only ways the defensive person would get on to the offensive would be to wait for the offensive to mess up (wait for them to accidentally not change their guards), or guess correctly at almost every guard and have enough energy to attack right away. And most of the time, skilled magicians _did not_ mess up.

Attacks, spells, and guards only depleted your energy for a little while, so you could continuously attack. But if you got hit, your energy was depleted until you healed yourself, which could not be done during a battle, since all healing spells took time and the world of magic was so fast paced. So, every time you got hit, you would be able to sustain fewer guards at one time, or do less spells, attacks, or enchantments at a time. Sometimes, if the magician was very skilled, before they got hit, they could sustain almost every guard they knew at once. But it was very detrimental to get hit. If your energy went down to zero, you died. So most of the time, two magicians fought until one surrendered, died, or escaped. Some magicians were so skilled that they would be able to do healing spells in the middle of a battle, but that was rare. And no magician in any world was able to bring back the dead, no matter how powerful they were.

Most magicians fought in groups, with healers, fighters (attackers, offense), defenders (to protect the healers), and rangers (far away attackers). Healers usually dedicated their studies to healing spells, so that they would be able to do them quickly. The nine princes were different, though. Each of them had a different, special spell that they could use. They could each choose to study about their own special spell, or study regular magic instead, and most of them chose to study their own spells, or abilities. Since Saeki's ability _was_ magic, he could do far much more magic than even the strongest magician in the country (currently), and he had a lot of energy, too.

Yukimura also knew more about the legend of the strongest magician, the one that created the orb, or the one who Fuji was a reincarnation of than his cousins did, and perhaps even more than that girl Shizuma did. He had no idea how he knew so much, but he did. Each royal generation was required to have exactly nine sons, and it didn't matter whether one family had all the sons, or whether one each family had one, but there always had to be exactly nine. If there were girls born, then after all nine sons were born, the girls would be somehow transported to a different world (this is all that their world knew how to do in terms of traveling between worlds) and become the_princesses_ of that world. That spell, though, could only be used once, because after it was used, the maximum energy of the user would be permanently depleted to the point where they wouldn't have enough energy to use it. Most of the time, the user even died.

The nine princes would always be the most magically able out of every being in the country, and they usually fought together. There would mostly be the nine of them, and there would always be another magician that would serve them, and that magician would always be the most powerful magician in the world. But the magician was not allowed to fight alone, or without the princes, unless he could beat the princes in a battle alone (one against nine). It was kind of unfair, but the magician alone should always be more skilled than each of the princes alone, and it wasn't possible to be better alone than the nine of them. Normally, the magicians were fine with this, since it was tradition, until one magician was born.

One magician was different. He was particularly strong and skilled, even more so than any of the previous magicians. He always studied his spells and attacks, hoping one day to be able to fight alone. But when he got older, his teachers told him the truth: he was only born to serve the princes and aide them in battle. He had been enraged by this, and by now, he was very strong, so he challenged the princes to a battle together. It had been a close match, but in the end, he had surrendered, almost dead.

He had stolen away to a secret place, and instead of healing himself, he had used the last of his energy for a spell that could only be done when one was looking death in the eye. He created the cursed orb, and cast it away to a place only known by him. The orb wasn't originally intended to be found by the princes, it was just to make someone _else's_ life miserable, like how his life had only been made to serve the princes. He created it, cast it away, and then died.

Later, he was reincarnated, and somehow learned of the orb again. He told the fortune teller of that generation to keep an eye on the orb and let him know if anyone found it. Many generations, years, decades, and centuries went by, and reincarnation after reincarnation was created, new princes were born over and over again, but no one ever found the orb. Finally, when the fortune teller turned her eyes away from the orb for one moment, it disappeared, and the boys found it in their backyard. So somehow, the curse eventually ended up placed upon the nine princes of which the magician hated so long ago.

But this time, many things were different, too. The parents of Yukimura and Jiroh were now dead, the father dying of an unknown cause, and the mother never to be found again only a couple months after Yukimura's birth. The magician was nowhere to be found, though Yukimura remembering something in his past that had to do with this mysterious magician. He couldn't remember what, though. So they had just set on a quest to find the magician at all costs, Yukimura keeping the uncertain feeling to himself.

* * *

Uber...cliffie/mystery! What is this unsettling feeling that Yukimura is having? Stick with this story, and you'll find out! Oh, and if you find this confusing in any way, I'm really sorry! I guess the videogamers will get it a bit more than others, but I'm not sure. xD;; Please be courteous and review before you fave/alert. Thanks! 


	5. Chapter 5: The Plan to Get Fuji Back

**Mirror, Mirror**

**Summary:** Fuji falls through a mirror one day and lands in a complete different world. Sometimes, while doing a favor for someone else, you realize that they're actually doing a favor for you.

**Warnings:** Shounen-ai

**Pairings: **Atobe x Fuji

**Disclaimer:** Prince of Tennis is not mine.

NUUU! This chapter is a bit shorter than the other ones, but the next one will be long; I promise. Thanks a lot to all my readers and reviewers! I owe you guys a lot! Please read, review, and enjoy!

**Chapter 5: The Plan to Get Fuji Back:**

"He's asleep!!" Jiroh said repeatedly. "I can't believe I actually did it!"

Yukimura smiled. "Now that he's asleep, we need him to dream of something…this is where you come in, Yuuta."

The younger Fuji brother (though not in this world) was sitting in another corner of the room, scowling with his arms crossed. "No way," he said.

Yuuta's special power worked in harmony with Jiroh's. His power was to make anyone dream of anything, and as long as they were asleep, he could keep them dreaming for however long he wanted, and he could also do other things at the same time. If his target was dazed enough, he could even make them dream while they were awake. Yuuta was able to keep someone asleep, as long as they were dreaming, and he was able to keep them dreaming for much longer than Jiroh was able to keep them just asleep without dreaming. So technically, Yuuta needed Jiroh's power for his own to work, and Jiroh needed Yuuta's power, or else the person would wake up after a short while, especially if they were in another world.

"Pleeeaaasseee????" Jiroh pleaded. Yuuta shook his head again and Jiroh sighed. "If we don't hurry, then he's going to wake up soon!!!"

"Who told you I cared if he woke up??" Yuuta asked. "If you're going to make a plan to get him to come back, can't you just make one that doesn't involve me?"

"But when people dream, they remember it the most!" Jiroh said.

Then, Yukimura stepped into the banter. "I have a good means of convincing him," he said calmly and gestured over to where Atobe was standing. "Help us now or the cloak gets it."

Sure enough, Atobe held Yuuta's cloak in his right hand with two steady fingers and it was dangling into a ball of fire in his left hand. "How the hell did you get my cloak?! I was wearing it two minutes ago!!" Yuuta shouted, jumping up and racing over to Atobe to try and retrieve the cloth.

"Secret," Yukimura said and smiled sweetly. "Oops, looks like it's already singeing a bit on the bottom." Each prince had their own special cloak that was made for them when they were young, awaiting a time when they reached the age of thirteen when they would get to wear it. Each cloak had the prince's initials on it, and it had a symbol that was unique on every cloak. If the cloak got damaged in any way, it was very expensive to get it fixed, and though the boys were princes, and they could very well afford it, their parents would probably kill them for it.

"Give it back!" Yuuta shouted. His arms flailed wildly around to try and grasp the cape, but Atobe only swung it out of his reach every time the younger boy came close.

"Not until you help us," Yukimura said. Finally giving up after many futile attempts, Yuuta sighed and sat back down.

"Fine." He closed his eyes. "What do you want him to dream about?"

Yukimura smirked. "Let's see…"

------------------------------

All Fuji saw was black. Why had he just fallen asleep? He had been very sleepy very suddenly, and there had been no reason for it. Now, he was wide awake. He tried to wake up, but he found that he couldn't open his eyes. What was going on? He had never fallen asleep like this, actually knowing that he was asleep before. He tried to gather bits and pieces of what had just happened in his mind. As he thought more, the more awake he became, and yet, as hard as he tried, he couldn't open his eyes.

Suddenly, his vision came back, but he wasn't in Seigaku, or any school, or even Tokyo. In fact, he didn't know where he was. All he saw around him was grass and a bright blue sky. He was sitting down, and finally, after a while, he saw a figure walking toward him. He recognized the figure; it was Atobe, but he wasn't wearing a Hyotei uniform, or even something Fuji would figure he'd find in his closet. He was wearing clothes that Fuji had seen before…a white cloak lined with gold…he was wearing the clothes from the mirror world!

How could he ever forget the mirror world if things kept coming back to him? How had he ended up here? He had never even been outside of the castle in the mirror world, besides to the extent of the balcony, if that counted. And what Fuji saw from there, though it was nighttime, wasn't exactly matching what he was seeing here. From his day and a half experience in that world, he hadn't seen a sunny day. He knew he shouldn't judge the climate from only a day and a half's stay, but even then, it made him wonder if they even _had_ sunny days.

Atobe seemed to spot Fuji then and extended a hand to him. "Come back to our world," he said.

Fuji looked up at Atobe, for he was still sitting in the grass, dumbfounded. "I—I can't," he said. "I'm not even in your world now…"

"That's why I, no, _we_ want you to come back," Atobe said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"I don't belong there," Fuji said. "I'll be a bother to you guys…"

"Have we said that before? Have we even implied that you were a bother? At all?"

Fuji shook his head.

"You're our guest, Fuji. No, you're part of our family. You're welcome any time. We want you to come back."

Fuji reached up slowly to grasp Atobe's hand, but then he remembered the curse and jerked back. "…" Fuji said.

"Go ahead, take my hand."

Fuji reached up again and took hold of Atobe's hand. He _actually took hold of it_!!! Fuji was shocked, and his hand felt warm in Atobe's slightly cool hand. Atobe smirked, and that was the last thing he saw before something cold and wet hit him in the back.

------------------------------

Fuji's eyes snapped open. A dream? Of course it was. He should've known better than to believe Atobe had actually weaved a way out of the curse. But why had he dreamt about _that_? Of all things, seriously.

Now, to focus his attention on the coldness that had just hit his back. He turned around with a sweet smile plastered on his face, though fully false. He saw Eiji grinning at him, a water bottle in hand. Fuji's back and the back of his shirt were soaked.

"Finally! You woke up!" Eiji said. "I knew it would work, nya! Seiichi always did that to me to wake me up."

"Seiichi?" Fuji questioned.

"Uhh…I mean, Yukimura!"

Fuji looked at his friend. "And what kind of relationship do you have exactly with him?"

"We're cous—I mean…I see him around sometimes." Eiji quickly changed the subject. "Anyway, you were sleeping for, like, the _whole day_, nya! You fainted in the morning, and I took you to the nurse's office, and you slept in there for a while. Then, after school, I took you to the clubroom to see if you'd wake up during practice, and you didn't, so I finally just poured water on your back. And that woke you up!"

Fuji's thoughts were automatically diverted from 'Seiichi'. "I was sleeping that long?" he asked.

Eiji nodded his head. "Did you sleep _at all_ last night?"

"Yeah," Fuji replied. "I had a pretty good sleep, too. It's not like I woke up or anything. I just felt really sleepy all of a sudden this morning, when I was walking to school with you."

"That's strange," Eiji said.

"Yeah, it is," Fuji agreed.

"But anyway, you should go home and get some rest. I can't go home with you today because Tezuka told me to lock up, nya."

"I'm quite awake now, thank you very much," Fuji said, glaring at Eiji for a moment. "I'll stay with you."

"No! I mean, it's okay, you should just go home."

Fuji shrugged and left. Everything was a bit strange today, anyway.

------------------------------

Shizuma looked into the crystal ball that was mounted on a cherry oak stand. "He's finally gone," she said, and all the princes gathered around here, except for Eiji. "How did it go?" she seemed to ask the crystal.

The image of Eiji in the sphere grinned like a cat. "Well! He slept _all day_! And he doesn't suspect a thing! What did you guys make him dream about??"

"Keigo," Yukimura said, and Eiji snickered.

"Good job, Yuuta!" Eiji said.

Yuuta just scowled and held on to his cloak tighter, which was now safely wrapped around his shoulders.

"How did you get over there, anyway, Eiji?" Oshitari asked the crystal ball. "I missed the whole thing."

"Oh, that's easy!" Eiji said. "I teleported here!" Eiji's power was teleportation, and he could teleport anywhere he wanted, as long as he could picture the place in his mind. If he couldn't picture the exact place, then he couldn't teleport there. If he just thought of street names and/or addresses, then he couldn't teleport there. He had just recently, like many of the other princes, been practicing his power a lot, and he had learned how to teleport to the other world and join with his body in Fuji's world. He could only do this because Shizuma had seen Fuji's face and now she could see where he was at any given time. She could also see a bit of the area around him, so Eiji just pictured that place and he was there. But he couldn't bring the body back into the mirror world without the orb.

"Oh, I see," Oshitari said. "Literally." Oshitari's power was that he could see anything or anyone's thoughts at the moment, as long as he could see their face. He could also see their feelings, their body temperature, their birthday, and their height and weight. He just had to be seeing the person's face at the moment. If part of the face was covered, then he could still see it, but the more of the face that was covered, the less he could see. If the eyes were covered, he couldn't see the person's thoughts, if the nose was covered, he couldn't see the person's birthday, if the forehead was covered, he couldn't see the temperature, if the cheeks were covered, he couldn't see the person's height and weight, and if the mouth was covered, he couldn't see their feelings. Also, if the person was facing away from him, then he couldn't see anything, and if he could see the person's profile, then he could only see half, naturally. His power had a lot of limitations, but it was a great power to have, and very convenient, which was why it had so many restrictions.

"Do you think he'll come back now?" Jiroh asked.

Yukimura smiled. "Not quite yet. We need to bother him some more. Or perhaps scare him."

"Scare him?!" Eiji shouted from the crystal ball. "If we scare him, then he'll never come back!!!"

"Relax, Eiji. What I meant by 'scare' was to have some strange phenomenon occur that will remind him of this world. I'm not going to scare him out of his wits."

"Oh," Eiji said and sighed. "That's good, nya. But who are you going to use for this one?"

Yukimura once again smiled. "That's simple. I'll do it myself. I've been practicing, too, you know."

------------------------------

Fuji walked along the cement sidewalk in the sunset. He loved walking home in the sunset, because it was always so beautiful, and it was nice to see it every single day. Plus, it provided him with inspiration for projects. If he had a creative assignment to work on and he couldn't think of anything, while walking home in the sunset, something would always come to him. But today, that wasn't exactly what he was thinking about. Why _had_ he dreamt of Atobe? And why had he been able to hold his hand? Fuji kept telling himself to ignore it and forget it, but somehow, he couldn't. He knew that anything could happen in dreams, but there was something about this dream that made it a bit different.

As if to heighten the strangeness of that day, a drop of water fell on to Fuji's head at that moment. He turned around, but there was nobody there. The sun was still shining, or setting, brightly. There should be no possibility, absolutely none, of rain. Yet Fuji felt another drop on his head, and he turned around once again so that he was facing the direction he had originally been facing.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a raindrop hit the ground. But instead of making one dark circle in the cement, the raindrop started sliding across the cement, leaving dark spots as it went along. Fuji looked close, and indeed, he saw that it was spelling something._Please come back, my, no, our little Fujiko_ was exactly what it read. Fuji was thinking that he was insane. Perhaps it was all a dream. Maybe he was living a dream right now. He bolted on the spot, running all the way home, and surprisingly, not one drop of rain fell again on him.

Running inside, he slammed the door shut and locked it, since no one was home except for him. He ran up to his room and sat down on his bed, resting his head in his hands. He wasn't crying, because he wasn't really distressed or anything, but more like overwhelmed. One day, he just falls _into_ a mirror, leaves, and then the next day, strange things start happening. What was going on? Fuji looked at the mirror quizzically at first, but then his look turned dark. To anyone, it looked like a normal mirror, but Fuji would never look at mirrors the same way again.

Fuji stood up, grabbed a blue sheet from his closet, and draped it over the mirror. Looking at it, he now couldn't see the mirror underneath. For all he knew, he was terrified of it. But he still had a feeling about the mirror, something that terrify could not even come close to describing. He glanced at the mirror once more, and then ripped the sheet off violently. He raised his hand back into a fist, and swung it at the mirror as hard as he could, not caring if it would hurt his hand.

------------------------------

"AAAAH!!!!" Shizuma cried as loud as she could, in horror, disgust, and surprise. "HE'S GOING TO BREAK IT!!!!"

The cousins ran to the crystal ball again and peered into it curiously. Their faces showed exactly the same things that Shizuma's cry resonated. "HE'S GOING TO BREAK THE MIRROR!" she screamed. And to everyone's dismay, his hand was traveling quickly toward the delicate glass object, and they all shouted in astonishment. To them, though, it seemed like it was in slow motion, since every time something terrible like that happened, it _always_ seemed like it was in slow motion.

Suddenly, the cousins heard Eiji's voice ring through the crystal ball. "Relax, everyone; I've got it taken care of." And for all their sakes, they sure hoped to god that Eiji indeed did have it taken care of.

------------------------------

Fuji's fist flew through the air as fast as his arm could carry it, seemingly accelerating with every bit of resistance the air tried to provide. He was going to destroy that godforsaken mirror once and for all, and completely forget that he ever fell into it. Perhaps his life would be normal again after that.

Fuji gasped in shock as his right wrist, right before his hand came in contact with the glass, was caught. "Sorry, Fujiko; I can't let you do that, nya!" Eiji's excited voice said from behind Fuji.

_WHAT?!_ Fuji thought. _How did he get in…?!_ But then he couldn't think any more as he was roughly pushed into the mirror, and like before, he fell in head first, his arms going forward to catch himself before forcefully hitting the palace's tiled floor.

* * *

Is it considered a cliffie? I don't know. xD;; I think every chapter is a cliffie, though, since you always want to know what's going to happen next! Be courteous and review before you fave/alert. Thanks! 


	6. Chapter 6: The Secret of Atobe

**Mirror, Mirror**

**Summary:** Fuji falls through a mirror one day and lands in a complete different world. Sometimes, while doing a favor for someone else, you realize that they're actually doing a favor for you.

**Warnings:** Shounen-ai

**Pairings: **Atobe x Fuji

**Disclaimer:** Prince of Tennis is not mine.

ZOMG! I almost forgot to update today since I was so busy! My parents forgot to pick me up from school, so I had to wait outside for half an hour to an hour, and finally, we (my friend and I) just called her parents to pick us up. That wasted a bunch of time that I could be practicing violin, since I had a lesson tonight. So I was practicing all evening, pretty much, and we ate dinner at about 9:00PM, which is late for us. But it's a good thing I remembered. xDDD;; Please read, review, and enjoy!

**Chapter 6: The Secret of Atobe:**

Fuji felt his arms give out under him, though breaking his fall slightly, and he turned so that his left shoulder hit the ground, but not hard enough to do much damage. Fuji gasped at the impact, not remembering that there were people around him, staring. He stood up shaking angrily, with his head down. The princes were still staring at him, some of them curiously, some of them somewhat amused, and some just plain scared to death.

Fuji finally looked up darkly at the princes. "Alright," he said. "I give up. Somehow, I just can't avoid this place." He worded his sentences slowly and carefully. "You guys get what you want. I'll come back whenever you want." His eyes were still dark, and seemingly full of hatred or distaste.

Yukimura, knowing all he did about the legend of the magician who created the orb, had the courage and heart to smile brightly. The reason was that Fuji reminded him so much of his own conjecture of what the magician would've been like. Stubborn, mysterious, determined, and yet, he hid it all under his cheery façade. "That's our little Fujiko," he said quietly. "Our little magician, living to serve us…" It was rare to see Yukimura trail off as he did then. Jiroh, one of the only ones that heard him, gave him a you're-creepy-and-you're-scaring-the-crap-out-of-me-so-please-stop look, and Fuji, the other one that heard him, gave him a look that no one could comprehend. It was something like a mix of a bunch of emotions all in one look.

Atobe walked up to Fuji and stroked his soft cheek. "Fuji…" he said. "We really didn't mean to make you detest us so much. We just missed you and wanted you to come back. If you really don't want to be here, then by all means, just go back…"

Everyone nodded at Atobe's statement. "If you're going to hate us for it, then you might as well just go back and break the mirror," Ryoma said.

Fuji glanced at everyone, surprised. He then smiled warmly. "You guys…"

"Our purpose wasn't really to scare you," Yukimura said, returning to his resolute, almost commanding self again. "We just wanted you to come back. We didn't really mean to scare you, or make you paranoid. At least, not to a point that you were going to shatter the mirror." He sighed jokingly and smiled. "I can't believe we actually had to resort to force to get you to return."

"What_I_ can't believe was the face that Fuji was scared by something so small," Oshitari said, smirking. "I thought you were stronger than that."

"That's no fair," Fuji chided lightheartedly. "You guys live in a world of magic. You probably wouldn't blink an eye if a sword came crashing through our window now and narrowly missed your head." He turned to face the rest of the princes again, and his smile turned sweet and dangerous at the same time. "Now, who's bright idea was it to put me to sleep, make me dream of _Atobe_, and then pour water on me?"

Everyone backed away one step, except for Yukimura, and naturally, they all pointed at him, and he just continued to smile. "S-Seiichi thought of it…" Jiroh said hesitantly, with a finger still pointed accusingly (at least, as accusingly as he could muster) at his older brother.

Fuji walked up to the blue haired boy, who still stood proudly in front of everyone else. "So, it was you, huh?" he said, with an icy gleam in his eye.

Yukimura smirked down at Fuji. "I'm surprised that you figured out the strange events were lead by us so quickly."

"Well, who else could it be?" Fuji looked around and saw Kikumaru standing behind everyone else, when he wasn't there before. "And how exactly did you get into our world?"

Kikumaru took a tiny step back. "Well, uh, I can teleport and stuff, so I teleported there and entered my body there…but I can't bring it back…because…I don't have the…orb…nya." He was trembling on the outside, because he was the one who had pushed Fuji into the mirror before the brunette had broken it. So there was no doubt in his mind that Fuji would be madder at him than at anyone else. Except for maybe Yukimura, since this had all been his idea.

"Ah," was Fuji's only reply. He turned once again to look at Yukimura and the other princes. "Well then, I supposed I'll be staying here again. At least for a little while."

"Yaaaay!!!" Jiroh shouted, pouncing on Fuji again. "When you leave, will you promise to look for our orb?"

Fuji laughed. "Of course I will."

-----------------------------

Fuji sat in his room, with only a lantern and the moon for light. He was just staring out the window contently, happy to not have to worry about school, tennis, or anything. This place was almost like a paradise for him, though he knew in the back of his mind that there was danger everywhere. But it was a different kind of feeling, different than the stress of studying for a test. It was almost like the danger here was thrilling, like your life was on the line. That was the kind of danger that Fuji liked.

Fuji stared out into the moonlight. He had promised everyone that he'd find the orb, but would he really be able to do it? He had no idea what this orb thing would be like, and he had no idea how he was going to find it. Round, with shatter marks all over it? How could it have shatter marks all over it and not be shattered? They didn't have that kind of paint back then. And did it have a color? It obviously wasn't white, since Shizuma had said that there were two white streaks across it. What was the size of this thing? It couldn't have been too big, since it was an orb, and he was supposed to be able to bring it through the two worlds.

While Fuji was racking his mind for anything that had to do with the existence of the orb, there was a soft knock at his door. "Who is it? Come on in," Fuji said, not waiting for an answer.

Atobe walked into the room. "It's snowing outside," he said, pointing to Fuji's window. Fuji hadn't even realized it. "It's our first snow of the season."

"How can that be?" Fuji asked, not realizing (either) that he had actually said that out loud. "It's May."

Atobe shrugged. "It's normal for it to start snowing in May. Sometimes it comes in April or June, though."

Fuji blinked. "But it's almost summer."

"Our seasons must be opposite of yours," Atobe concluded.

"Yeah, that could be true."

There was a silence, but then Atobe said, "If you're not busy, do you want to walk outside with me for a bit?"

"Sure," Fuji said. He got up off of his bed and followed Atobe down flights of stairs and through the door. As soon as he got outside, he immediately felt the cold wind, and he pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders.

"You okay?" Atobe asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Fuji replied. He looked around the outside and at his surroundings for the first time, and then he realized that he wasn't even on the lowest floor of the castle yet. They were merely standing outside on a balcony, about three floors off the ground. "Wow; everything's so quiet when it's snowing."

"Yeah, it is. Do you have a lot of snow where you live?"

"Sometimes," Fuji said, and then he laughed. "But it normally starts around November. We're an island country, though, so we get the lake effect snow a lot in the winter. Our weather is kind of jumpy. Sometimes we get snow in, like, April, though, or October, and that's kind of creepy."

"Sometimes we gent random snows, too, like in January or December, which would kind of be like snowing in June or July for you, I guess. It's normally the work of a mage somewhere, but we don't really care."

Fuji smiled. "Must be exciting to wake up in the middle of summer and have it snowing."

"Most of the time it is, but sometimes it's scary, if we're at war with another country or something. Kojiroh can always stop the snow, though, if it turns out to be too much."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, everyone in our family has a special kind of power. And Kojiroh just happens to be the mage of our family, so he can negate almost any elemental thing that comes at him, unless the magician that's causing the event is stronger than him. But there should be no one in our country that is stronger than him at magic, except for the rumored 'Most Powerful Magician'."

"Who's that?" Fuji asked.

"Every time new princes are born, then a new magician is born as well, and that person is always the most powerful magician in the land. They are born to only serve the princes, in case an exceptionally strong magician from another country attacks us. He was also the one that created the orb and cursed us."

Fuji tilted his head slightly, suddenly very surprised. "Born…only to serve…you guys? The princes?" He then remembered why those words hit him like a rock. He remembered what Yukimura had said earlier that day, when he had been pushed into the mirror. _"Our little magician, living to serve us…"_ Fuji's eyes widened. "Excuse me for a moment," he said, turning away from Atobe and walking back into the house quickly. What he didn't notice was that when he turned, his cloak billowed out and hit Atobe. It hit him, and did not go through him.

-----------------------------

Fuji found his way clumsily through the large castle, trying to retrace his steps. He was surprised that Atobe wasn't following him. Finally, after what seemed like hours of searching (in reality, it had only been a couple of minutes), he found the hallways that he had been looking for. He counted the doors until he reached his own room, and then counted a couple doors back to Yukimura's room.

Fuji walked in, too caught up in his own curiosity to remember to knock. The light was still lit under the door, anyway. As soon as he walked in, he didn't even have time to think before a hand came at his face swiftly and covered his mouth. And the hand was cold. _Very cold_. Fuji jumped up in surprise, though he didn't say anything. Yukimura, the owner of the hand, turned in surprise as well.

"Oh," he said, removing his hand. "Sorry, I thought you were Keigo." Fuji started to say something, but Yukimura cut him off. "If you want to talk, let's go outside. Jiroh's sleeping here."

So the two walked out of Yukimura's room, closing the door quietly, and stepped a couple paces down to Fuji's room. They went inside and closed the door once again. Fuji followed Yukimura onto his own balcony, which was much smaller than the one in the front that he had been standing on with Atobe.

"Okay, we should be far enough now," Yukimura said, after he closed the door to the balcony. The balcony was indeed _much_ smaller, and Fuji felt slightly cramped, but the nice cold air pretty much counteracted that.

"Couldn't we have started talking right after your door was closed?" Fuji asked.

"All of the princes have acute hearing. Even when they're sleeping. Which makes them exceptionally light sleepers. I don't know how Jiroh is in your world, but here, he wakes up quite easily."

Fuji laughed. "It's exactly opposite in my world. One of his teammates had to wake him up with a bullhorn."

Yukimura leaned up against the railing. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

Fuji then remembered. "Something Atobe said." Yukimura smirked, and Fuji immediately said, "It's not what you think. He said something about a powerful magician living only to serve the princes. And it was like something you said about me today. What's the connection?"

Yukimura's face then turned solemn. "I think it may be better for you not to know."

"What?"

Yukimura backed away, reaching behind him and opening the door. "You really shouldn't know about it until you have to. None of the other princes know much about it except for me."

"Wait," Fuji said, reaching in front of him to grasp Yukimura's hand, but the taller boy jerked it back forcefully.

"Don't touch me," he said, the phrase coming out much more bitterly than he had originally intended it to. He then turned around and walked swiftly back into Fuji's room. Fuji reached out again and tried to grab Yukimura's cape, but it slipped between his fingers. What he didn't understand, though, was how he had felt a bit of the fabric of the cape before Yukimura had been out of reach. It hadn't merely passed through his hand.

Fuji was at a loss for words. How had he been able to take hold of Yukimura's cloak for a split second? Any clothes that they had on could not be touched as well. Then what had just happened? He had better check with…Atobe? What had made him think of Atobe? Fuji shrugged and, following his instincts, walked the direction of the balcony he had left Atobe on not too long ago.

When he got to his destination, before opening the door, he glanced outside through the window. Atobe was leaning over the railing slightly, with his head resting on his hand, or so Fuji presumed because Atobe was facing away from him. The prince was staring into the night sky, and Fuji desperately wanted to get a closer look at him.

Fuji opened the door slowly, not making the slightest noise at all and crept outside into the cold, crisp night air. His cloak was lighter than the princes', so it didn't make any noise, but on the other hand, he was still cold. He knew he was being impressively quiet, and he also knew that even he, if he had been creeping up on himself, would not have been able to notice him. And of course, Atobe didn't, either.

Fuji was now within an arm's reach of Atobe. Without thinking, he reached his hand out and stroked the soft fabric of Atobe's cloak. He didn't make any sound, but he knew Atobe could feel the gentle tug of his hand. Atobe whipped around, and Fuji kept a tight grip on Atobe's cloak. "So this is how it is," he said quietly. "I see…but I don't quite understand."

"Since when did you get here?" Atobe asked, annoyed, but seemingly calmed down a bit.

Fuji still clutched at the hem of Atobe's cloak, as if letting go would make it disappear. "Since a couple moments ago." He shook Atobe's cloak slightly so that it rippled. "How exactly did this come about?"

Atobe sighed. "Guess the secret's out, now. Who let their guard down?"

Fuji motioned behind him to where Yukimura was standing now, with a troubled expression on his face. "I'm sorry," the blue haired boy said.

Atobe shrugged, seeming a lot calmer than he should've been. "I guess it couldn't have been helped with Fuji here, after all."

Fuji took a step forward. "But why just you two? And how did you do it?"

Atobe moved his hand to cover Fuji's, which was still holding the hem of his cloak. "Have you ever heard of the art of summoning, Fuji?"

Fuji chuckled. "Are you kidding?"

"Good. Then this will be easier to explain. I told you earlier that we all have special powers. I can summon people. I have been practicing at this technique for years, and I finally managed to summon my body from the real world recently. And so now, I am a normal person again. And I helped Seiichi, too, because he is very close to me."

"You haven't answered my second question yet," Fuji said.

Yukimura looked down. "Perhaps it's because he doesn't want to."

Fuji looked up at Atobe with glittering eyes. "Why?"

Atobe looked away, though his hand was still covering Fuji's ever so slightly. He glanced at the full moon and turned back to Fuji. The snow fell steadily around the three boys, and it was getting colder by the minute. "Maybe we should go inside."

Atobe started to walk past Fuji, but the smaller boy stopped him. "You can't evade this question, Atobe."

Atobe turned back to Fuji. "The closer you are to someone on a personal level, the less energy it takes to summon them. I am myself, and I will always be. It requires skill to summon myself from the real world, but not too much energy. Yukimura is virtually my _twin_. It takes almost no energy to summon him as well." And with that, Atobe left the balcony, pulling his cloak out of Fuji's hands and taking it with him.

Yukimura looked at Fuji's puzzled face and decided to help out with the translating. "Keigo's a bit distant from the other princes. He's a bit distant from everyone, despite his arrogance. He keeps his heart locked away, and he will never get close to anyone. That is a fault in his personality, though he is a summoner. When he was young, he was always outgoing, and everyone thought that summoning would be the perfect power for him. But no one knew that no matter how outgoing he was, he still wouldn't get friendly with many people. As he got older, he kept his distance even more from others, so much that he didn't even retain the outgoing mask. The only person that he will open up to is me. Not even his own brother and almost identical twin, Eiji.

"It takes an immense amount of energy to summon someone that you aren't close to. But as you get closer to that person, the amount of energy it takes depletes rapidly. Atobe is always summoning me places, and it gets quite annoying, but I know well enough that it's his way of renewing the bond between us.

"Also, the more powerful a person is, the more energy it takes to summon them. So if Atobe tried to summon one of the other princes who he isn't close to, and they are also very powerful, then a large amount of energy would be required, and he might lose his life in the process," Yukimura finished cryptically.

Fuji hung his head slightly, though it was barely noticeable. Yukimura saw that Fuji very well understood his explanation, and he didn't need to repeat it. He didn't even know if Fuji had actually been listening to the actual explaining part, but he knew that Fuji had heard the last part.

Yukimura glanced up at the moon once more, just as Atobe had. No matter how many people told him that the moon had some kind of power that was supposed to renew your energy and make you feel better, Yukimura still didn't feel it. The moon was just a moon to him, nothing more. He didn't feel a special presence in it, or anything comforting, inspiring, or powerful coming from it. He had always hoped he would feel it as he got older, but somehow, nothing ever happened when he looked at the moon. He had always been looking at it, though, hoping for something, even the slightest difference in his mind or heart, but he had never felt it. It made him wonder if there was something wrong with him.

Fuji followed Yukimura's gaze. "Is there something in the sky?" he asked finally.

Yukimura pointed. "It's a full moon," he said.

Fuji looked at him. "So? It's just a moon."

Yukimura looked back at Fuji, surprised at what he had said. "There's nothing celebratory about a full moon where you come from?"

"Sure there is, a lot of times, but I never see the point of it."

Yukimura smiled at Fuji appreciatively, though Fuji didn't know why. "It's getting colder and colder out here. Why don't we go inside?" Yukimura walked toward the door, and Fuji followed him without a word.

* * *

Secret's out! Atobe and Yukimura are normal, though the other princes don't know it! I think this explanation was a bit easier to understand than some of the other ones I have given previously. xD;; Anyway, please be courteous and review before you fave/alert. Thanks! 


	7. Chapter 7: The Fight of Fire and Ice

**Mirror, Mirror**

**Summary:** Fuji falls through a mirror one day and lands in a complete different world. Sometimes, while doing a favor for someone else, you realize that they're actually doing a favor for you.

**Warnings:** Shounen-ai

**Pairings: **Atobe x Fuji

**Disclaimer:** Prince of Tennis is not mine.

-BASHES HEAD AGAINST KEYBOARD REPEATEDLY- I don't normally update this late, and I'm REALLY sorry about that! I've been so busy lately, and...GAH. I must remind myself next time! DDDD; I'm really sorry about not updating for a while! This is a nice chapter, and it's decently long, so I hope that makes up for it a bit! I'll definitely make it up to you guys in the chapters to come! I promise! In the meantime, please read, review, and enjoy!

**Chapter 7: The Fight of Fire and Ice:**

Fuji fingered Atobe's hair as the older boy was sleeping. He has such soft hair, Fuji thought, and smiled. It was a lot more natural than Fuji had thought it would feel. He was jealous.

It was currently somewhere around 5:30 and 6:00 in the morning, and the air outside was hazy and foggy, and there was no sun to be seen. It was almost like they were living in clouds. Fuji could see the faint outlines of the forest around them, and he could feel that the wind was blowing just from the draft that blew through the window every now and then. The mist was so dense that it almost felt like a very light rain when Fuji stuck his arm outside the window.

"Jealous of what?" a voice said, breaking his thoughts. Fuji looked down, surprised. Had he actually said that out loud? Atobe was looking up at him with one eye open, his hand resting under his head.

Fuji's hand dropped from Atobe's hair instantly. "Your hair," Fuji said, despite his antics.

Atobe sat up and stood up, making it all look like one motion, and moved closer to Fuji. The taller boy let his hand run down Fuji's hair, and a bit onto the back of his neck. "Your hair's not too bad, either," he said, smirking. "What brings you up this early in the morning, anyway?"

Fuji could feel his face turn a bit darker in shade, though he was normally calm and composed. "A-ah, I guess you're right," Fuji said, not thinking that he would stutter at the beginning like he had. "I just woke up early, I guess. Maybe the wind woke me up, but I couldn't go back to sleep."

"So you come to my room instead?" Atobe smirked, seeing that he had gotten the reaction that he wanted, and moved even closer so that their chests were touching. His right hand, which was still behind Fuji's neck, tilted the brunette's face up toward Atobe's gently. His left hand snaked around Fuji's waist and brought their bodies together, and Fuji's arms fell naturally around Atobe's shoulders. Without thinking, Atobe leaned down and kissed Fuji.

At first, the kiss was just a sweet, tender lip to lip kiss, but Fuji then felt something in his heart, and he pulled himself up to deepen the kiss, surprising Atobe. After the initial shock, Atobe pulled Fuji up, too. But then, he abruptly broke off the kiss. Atobe pushed Fuji to the wall, and stepped in front of him quickly, just as an arrow narrowly missed his head.

Fuji only let a gasp as it hit the wall that was at a ninety degrees angle to the wall he was leaning on right now. "A-Atobe," he said.

Atobe growled. "Stupid assassins. They're always after us." Atobe walked over to the wall and jerked the arrow out of it. With one fell swipe against the stone wall, the arrow was as sharp as it had come. "Are you alright?"

Fuji nodded. "Thanks to you."

Atobe inspected the arrow carefully, almost surprised that it wasn't laced in deadly poison or toxins. He poked the arrow through the hole in the wall again, and then found the poisons that he had been searching for. He grabbed a canteen that hung from the door and cleansed the hole in the wall thoroughly, but left the arrow still soaked in the toxins that had been on the inside of the wall. "I'll take care of this guy once and for all."

Fuji stepped up behind him. "Has he or she been bothering you for a while now?"

"It's probably a girl," Atobe said. "The shaft of the arrow is made of a lighter material. But yes, she has been bothering me for a couple days now. She never hits, though, obviously." Atobe turned and stepped over to the window, grabbing his bow from beside his bed in the process. He strung the bow quickly, and notched the arrow. As he pulled it back, a flame lit on the tip of the arrow. Fuji could see the flame well, yet there was something different about it. It was almost as if it wasn't giving off any heat at all.

"Won't that burn out when the air hits it at that strong of a force?" Fuji asked.

"Just wait and see," Atobe said, aiming so that the arrow would land in the forest near the castle somewhere. He finally let go, and the arrow whizzed through the air even faster than it had come. Fuji stared after the arrow.

"And the forest? It won't catch fire?" he asked.

Atobe shook his head. "That's called an 'energy flame'. The flame is made of energy, and when it hits something, then it will create a large explosion. It's mostly used on tips of arrows, javelins, kunai, etc. The longer distance it travels, the more intensity it gains, and the larger and more powerful the explosion will be. The explosion will only affect humans or anything resembling a human, and if created specially, it can also be 'set' to only affect humans with large amounts of energy. Meaning, no trees or animals in the forest will be affected. The flame will never burn out until the explosion is ended, or if the creator of the flame wishes it to be gone. Also, it doesn't always have to be a flame. The tip can be poisoned, ice, and all sorts of things. But since fire is my specialty, besides summoning, you know."

Atobe and Fuji both stared out the window for a while, seeing nothing. Finally, after a while, there was a loud boom and a deafening scream that pierced through the crisp morning air. Fuji could see the bright orange-red energy forming a hemisphere on the ground, and it was spreading quickly. It was almost as if the sun had just hit the ground, since there were flares whipping out from the ball of pure energy. Atobe and Fuji were forced to step back and shield their faces from the power of the air around the huge mass. The ball of energy came dangerously close to the window and castle, but faded into nothing as soon as Fuji thought that it would destroy all life inside the castle.

"That," Atobe said, "is the power of energy, or as it is more commonly called in this world, 'mana'. The way a mana explosion works is that it drains the mana out of whatever victim happens to be in its way, which makes the explosion a bit bigger. Mana exhaustion is the most painful and agonizing way to die, mixed with one of the next most painful ways to die, which is by poison. When the poison is mixed with the mana from the tipped arrow, the effects are mixed, too. The poison reaches wherever the mana explosion reaches, poisoning anything in its path, or anything that inhales the poison. But, like the mana, it only affects human resembling creatures."

"So if we would've been touched by that giant ball of mana…" Fuji started.

"We might have not been exhausted of our mana, since we're not very close to the center of the explosion, but we might've gotten poisoned, since the poison spreads evenly throughout."

Fuji looked at Atobe. "Next time, watch where you're firing. You almost got us killed!"

Atobe shrugged. "How was I supposed to know how much mana that girl had? I underestimated her. Were you blown back by the invisible effects outside of the explosion?"

Fuji nodded. "That was one forceful attack."

"That's strange," Atobe said. "I made it so that the explosion only affected those with a lot of mana, or only powerful creatures. A lot of people go hunting in this season because it's almost winter time, and I didn't want to hurt anyone."

Fuji smiled. "Then perhaps I'm just really powerful," he said jokingly. But inside, both of them wondered if Fuji really was the reincarnation of the most powerful magician ever to exist.

-------------------------------

"And then you do the wrist flick," Yukimura said quietly, flicking his wrist as he had said to do. The water in the puddle on the ground was lifted. He trailed his hand around himself, and the water seemed to follow his hand as if it were being pulled by a string. Then, with another silent flick of the wrist, the water was cast off, and it hit Atobe square in the back.

Atobe twitched, but didn't show any signs of movement other than that because he was probably used to it by now. After all, they had been using him and Ryoma as targets for a while now, since they were right there and had their backs turned. Fuji laughed quietly. "You try it now," Yukimura said, and held Fuji's hand. He directed it exactly how his own hand had been moving, and flicked Fuji's wrist also, but this time, right at Ryoma's back. It splashed onto an already drenched Ryoma.

Ryoma turned around with an extremely agitated look on his face. "That's it!" he said, leaping up, flying over to Fuji, and pinning him to the ground. "You are _not_ using me as a practice target anymore!"

Fuji was laughing hysterically. "It wasn't me!" he said jokingly, kicking Ryoma off. After all, it didn't matter how much magic Ryoma had, Fuji was still older and stronger.

Yukimura suddenly clapped his hands together. Both Fuji and Ryoma looked at him with confused expressions. "This is perfect!" he said delightedly. "This gives Ryoma an opportunity to practice his strength, and Fuji an opportunity to practice his magic and fighting skills!"

Fuji pointed at Ryoma. "You want me to _fight_ him?" he said, face almost paling. "I can't fight _him_!"

"Aww, Fuji, it won't be so bad," Atobe said, cajoling Fuji. "If you feel like you can't fight anymore, then admit defeat! It's simple. Or if someone else decides that you're too hurt or exhausted to continue."

Ryoma smirked. "Yeah. If you want to get it over with, then _admit defeat_."

Fuji glared at Ryoma darkly. "Not to the likes of you!"

Yukimura smiled. "Perfect! They're both competitive and riled up! This'll be great! You two ready?"

Fuji sighed. "Ready as I'll ever be." Ryoma just nodded.

"Then fight!"

Ryoma, as expected, was the one to act first, literally flying at the speed of light toward Fuji with nothing but a short dagger shaped as an ice crystal that he always kept with him. It was an aquamarine color, as Fuji noticed before he unsheathed his own dagger, and blocked Ryoma's attack. Fuji's dagger, on the other hand, was longer and red. It was shaped like flames coming out of a hilt, more for decorative than tactical purposes. But it was obvious that if the dagger got thrust into someone, it would _hurt_ to pull it out.

Ryoma fell back, still physically weak, but he landed on his feet smoothly, not wasting any time in getting off of the ground once more. He kept trying to hit Fuji, clearly trying to mortally wound, if not _kill_ the older boy. Fuji could tell that the youngest prince was not holding back at all, and that was the way he liked it, even if he were to get wounded. Fuji blocked and parried every attack efficiently, turning left and right to meet Ryoma's face, and sometimes even taking a moment to smile at him, only aggravating the younger boy even more.

What Ryoma was not noticing, though, was that Fuji's dagger, much like its appearance, was laced with burning fire, though it couldn't be seen. Every time Ryoma's dagger hit it, there would be a significant chip on the surface of Ryoma's dagger, exactly as Fuji had intended it. Ryoma finally took a moment to glance at his dagger, noticing the chips and scrapes, and glaring at Fuji. Fuji merely smiled, and elbowed Ryoma in the ribs. He then delivered a rough kick in the same spot, sending Ryoma flying.

Fuji hadn't expected Ryoma to recover so quickly from that hit, though, and hadn't expected to be face to face with the younger boy in an instant. He had pretty much forgotten that Ryoma could still fly. Ryoma then returned the favor to Fuji, elbowing him, and then kicking him. Somewhere in the midst of the blows, Ryoma had sliced Fuji's left cheek, and it was bleeding profusely. Just as Fuji thought he couldn't take anymore and was about to surrender, he had the breath knocked out of him by one final blow by Ryoma and was sent crashing into the wall.

His eyes were closed, and he could hear Ryoma panting. He could also hear Yukimura stepping up to Ryoma, saying, "That's enough." He could almost see Ryoma glaring at him intently. Keeping his eyes closed and hair over his face, Fuji smirked. He felt a surge of energy, or mana, rushing into him from an unknown source, and he didn't even feel his wounds. He could feel the mana almost overflowing, and somehow, he had to use it up.

Fuji stood up on the spot, stepping over to Ryoma. "No," he said cryptically. "It's not enough." Ryoma looked shocked to see Fuji there, standing, and not feeling a thing. Yukimura was looking at Fuji strangely, too, and Atobe was watching from a distance. The other princes who were in the room had also focused their attention onto the fight. When Fuji opened his eyes, everyone could clearly see that there was something not normal about them. Though they were normally blue, it seemed even more intense now than usual. It was almost as if they were glowing, or illuminated, and they didn't have that trademark playfulness in them. Yukimura stepped back, watching Fuji eyes intently. He had an unreadable expression on his face, as if he felt surprised, nostalgic, and mournful at the same time. Yet, he looked dazed.

Meanwhile, Fuji grabbed Ryoma by the throat with no effort at all. Not only his eyes, but his whole body seemed to be surrounded by an abnormal amount of mana now. Ryoma shouted out in surprise while trying to free himself from Fuji's mana-secured grip. Fuji now had both hands around Ryoma's throat. He released his clasped fingers slowly, but Ryoma still was not out of Fuji's grip. The only explanation would be that Fuji's mana was holding the grip together. But the last time any of the princes checked, Fuji was incapable of such amounts of mana.

Then, all at once, a strong gust of mana came from Fuji's hands, knocking Ryoma back forcefully from Fuji's hands to the wall and rendering him unconscious. Fuji smiled at Ryoma once more with his glowing aqua eyes, closed them gently, and fainted, only to be caught by Atobe, who had been stepping closer with each passing second. He had seen it coming.

-------------------------------

Atobe was sitting in his room, enjoying the quiet night and gentle breeze coming from the window. He was sitting at a desk, with his feet on a plush scarlet rug draped over the wooden floorboards and a lantern resting securely on the desk. He had his head in his hands, thinking about the events of that afternoon. Fuji was still passed out, and so was Ryoma, both with wounds that would take some time to recover. He knew it was going to be a bad idea for them to fight each other, but Yukimura had thought the opposite, apparently. Both of them were extremely competitive, especially with each other, and neither would give up until one was dead or unconscious, and that was exactly what had happened.

But what had happened to Fuji in the end? After Ryoma had beat him up bad and cut his cheek, Atobe was sure Fuji would be much too exhausted to continue, and be tired from the loss of blood, too. But as soon as he stood up, Atobe had a gut feeling that it would turn out to be just the opposite. What was in Fuji's eyes? Atobe knew they were a stunning blue, but not _that_ blue. And mana had pretty much been _seeping_ out of him. Atobe hadn't seen that much mana in one place since…the princes had accidentally toyed with the orb so many years ago. It was almost the same feeling.

Just then, there was a soft knock at Atobe's door. It was opened, and Atobe knew it would be Yukimura. And it was. "Can I speak with you for a moment?" Yukimura asked. Atobe shrugged.

"Sure," he said.

Yukimura sat down on the bed, still fully dressed, cloak and all. Atobe figured that Yukimura hadn't had time to change out of the clothes he had been wearing. He _had_ been the one taking care of the injured and wounded, making sure the two boys were changed into clean clothes and tucked into their beds. Even though he had a commanding nature, he was still like a mother figure to the princes.

"I figured you might understand this situation the best," Yukimura said. Atobe knew that whenever Yukimura said something like that, it wouldn't be good news.

"What is it?" he asked, thought regretting it. He didn't want to hear the answer, and Yukimura could sense it.

"I'm sorry for burdening you," he said. "If you don't want to hear it, then I could just leave."

Atobe shook his head. "You already told me something was bothering you, and I want to know what it is now."

"Very well then," Yukimura said, sighing. "Since the…_incident_ this afternoon, I've been having these strange flashbacks, but none of them were of things I remember doing. They were flashbacks of two young boys playing with each other. One had hair tied back in a ponytail, and the other I couldn't see so clearly. I couldn't see their faces well, but I knew that they were both very happy. Both of them seem very familiar, and I think the one that I can't see well might be me, but I don't remember living a life with any other person except for all the princes here, and I would've been able to recognize them right away.

"That was the first flashback. In the second one, I saw the same thing, but my field of vision was larger that time. Off to the side, I saw two parents, a mother and a father, watching the children and smiling. The father reminds me of my father, but I've never seen the mother before. And I can't figure out who they are or where they're from."

Atobe thought for a moment before turning to Yukimura again. "Was there something strange about any of the people you saw in your flashbacks? Something abnormal? Were they of a different race or species?"

Yukimura shook his head. "They were all humans. But I know all the people that I've came in contact with, and not one looked like that. I couldn't recognize him _at all_." Yukimura was referring to the boy with his hair in a ponytail, obviously.

Atobe shook his head, too. "I can't think of anything. Maybe you just shouldn't worry about it."

Yukimura sighed. "Maybe you're right. Perhaps I'm just hallucinating. Good night, and I'm sorry for bothering you." He stood up and walked out of the room wordlessly. But both princes knew that they couldn't just ignore something so blatantly obvious.

* * *

What's Yukimura having flashbacks about??? Tune in next time (or the time after that, or some time in the future) to figure it out! It's another cliffie, I'm sorry, everyone, but I hope I can remember to update on time this time! I'm really sorry! I love you all! And be sure to review before you fave/alert. Thanks a ton! 


	8. Chapter 8: The Journal of the King

**Mirror, Mirror**

**Summary:** Fuji falls through a mirror one day and lands in a complete different world. Sometimes, while doing a favor for someone else, you realize that they're actually doing a favor for you.

**Warnings:** Shounen-ai

**Pairings: **Atobe x Fuji

**Disclaimer:** Prince of Tennis is not mine.

Hey! I actually remembered to update this time. It's because we're on Thanksgiving break and I have nothing to do. My brother came back from college today, which was nice. He doesn't look or sound too different, though. Anyway, on with the story. This chapter kind of ends on a cliffhanger, so I'm really sorry about that! Please read, review, and enjoy! PS: I think I might actually have another plot bunny in my head! I have to think of how the story is going to work though.

**Chapter 8: The Journal of the King:**

Fuji woke up to a dim light streaming through his window and a cool breeze blowing through. He heard the silence of the snow falling onto the trees outside and the serene feeling of a nice morning. There was a small lantern resting on his nightstand, and it was lit dimly. It was still early in the morning, since the sky outside was overcast and it was snowing moderately. The only thing that ruined this perfect morning was the fact that his head, and pretty much every body part, was hurting tremendously, and he couldn't figure out why.

Fuji lifted his fingers to rub or at least feel his head, but when he took a look at his fingers, they were bandaged up with white cloth. What had happened? Lifting his left hand, he saw that it didn't need to be bandaged, but it was still scratched up pretty bad. Feeling his forehead with his left hand, Fuji noticed that it, too, was bandaged under the hair that was still falling across it. There was also a bandage across his cheek, but strangely enough, that was the only place that didn't hurt.

Fuji stepped out of the bed, wearing some kind of white tunic that was tied at the waist. His right ankle and knee were bandaged, and his right shoulder was wrapped in the white cloth, also. He saw that his left side was still scratched up, and he was almost afraid to see what was under the bandages. He felt something under his tunic, and he then noticed that his torso was _also _bandaged up, and something on his back stung like crazy. He got out of bed and walked over to Atobe's room, trembling at the cold, shock, and fear of finding out what had happened to him.

Fuji knocked softly at Atobe's door, and almost instantly, it swung open, and Fuji was ushered inside, surprised. He felt something warm and soft being wrapped around him, a blanket, and he sat down on the bed (it wasn't like he had a choice anyway). All of that happened in almost less that a second. When Fuji got a chance to look up, he saw Atobe looking down at him, frowning. "Why did you get up so early?" he asked.

Fuji shrugged. "I just woke up?"

"From those injuries, you weren't supposed to have woken up until two days from now," Atobe said.

"When did I get these?"

"Yesterday evening."

Fuji blinked. "What happened?? I'm scratched and bruised all over, and half of my body is wrapped in bandages. Not to mention that there isn't one part of me that doesn't hurt, except for my face, other than my forehead. Something on my back stings like crazy, and my forehead feels like it's being hit with a rock repeatedly."

Atobe sat down next to Fuji. "Slow down. You don't remember what happened yesterday?"

Fuji shook his head. "All I remember is Ryoma, a challenge, and being hurt a lot by the little brat. And then I felt a ton of mana surging into me, and I remember not feeling any of my wounds anymore. I just felt…powerful. And that's all I remember."

Atobe sighed. "It's enough. Don't think too hard about it." He leaned in close to Fuji and carefully unwrapped the bandages that were around Fuji's forehead. The gash had gotten a bit better from yesterday, and it hadn't bled more. There was still a scab there, and a scar might stay there forever if they didn't take care of it quickly. Atobe ran his fingers across it gently, and as expected, Fuji flinched.

Fuji felt the scab on his forehead hurt more and more after Atobe had touched it. It was almost as if there was a curse or something in it. Fuji bit his lip and tears welled up in his eyes as the pain worsened. It was almost too much to bear.

"It hurts a lot, doesn't it?" Atobe asked quietly, almost a whisper. Fuji barely had the strength to nod his head as tears were streaming down his face. "It's a curse. I should've known. It must've been Ryoma's dagger that cut across your face yesterday. It was laced with something that affects the region near the brain, as long as it cuts across the face. Don't bite your lip."

"I—I can't…" was all Fuji managed to say. His lip was bleeding now. Atobe handed his cape to Fuji, who clutched at it until his knuckles turned white. It made the pressure on Fuji's lower lip a bit less, but Atobe could still tell that Fuji was in immense pain.

Just then, Yukimura came into the room and rushed over to Fuji, whose cheeks were now tear stained. Yukimura cursed at Ryoma quietly and dipped his index and middle fingers into a jar of ointment that he had in his hand at the moment and rubbed it over Fuji's wound.

Fuji could feel the pain lessen a bit, and then more and more, until it was completely gone. Fuji sighed, and breathed heavily after that. "Atobe, why don't you have this in your room?" Yukimura asked him. "You should've known that you'd be the first one that Fuji would come to. If you're going to speed up the healing process, at least do it right so that Fuji doesn't pass out from the pain first."

"So that's what it was?" Fuji asked. "Atobe's hand also sped up the healing process?"

Yukimura nodded. "In our world, wounds only hurt because they're healing or they're cursed. Yesterday evening, we put a spell on your wounds to keep them from healing at all so that you'd be able to get a good sleep. But if one's wounds don't get healed quickly enough, then the pain could spread to other wounds and get worse once it starts healing again. If the healing process is sped up, then the wound hurts more, too. I wasn't aware that you would awaken this quickly, though. But on the other hand, I was kind of hoping it, so that we could get to the healing quicker."

"So Ryoma will have to go through this, too?" Fuji asked.

Yukimura smirked. "Yeah, except a whole lot worse, since he's going to be waking up a lot later than you."

"Serves him right," Fuji said under his breath. "That damned dagger of his."

"That you pretty much destroyed," Atobe pointed out. "Who taught you how to lace things with flame?"

Fuji smiled. "You did."

"Didn't think you'd pick up on it so quickly," Atobe said.

Yukimura poked Atobe. "This _is_ the reincarnation of the world's most powerful magician that we're talking about. He should be able to pick up on something as simple as that." Atobe shrugged. "Now, let's get to Fuji's back. There's a nasty wound there that needs healing." Fuji's face paled and Yukimura chuckled. "Come on, it won't be that bad."

"You sure?" Fuji asked.

Yukimura shook his head. "No, I'm not."

"That's convincing," Fuji said sarcastically and settled himself on the bed. "But it will have to happen some time."

Yukimura nodded at Atobe, who sat down on the bed behind Fuji and removed the blanket from around Fuji. He took off Fuji's white tunic, and then began unraveling the bandages that were around the brunette's torso. Sure enough, there was a large gash down Fuji's back going diagonally, and there were nasty scratches around it. Atobe ran his fingers down the edges of the scab gently, which caused Fuji to shiver involuntarily and clutch at the blanket, which was now curled up into a ball.

Fuji felt the pain become more intense, even as Yukimura quickly rubbed ointment onto the wounded areas. Atobe, meanwhile, was staring at the pale skin of Fuji's back with a raised eyebrow. Yukimura noticed this and coughed. "This is _not_ the time, Keigo."

Atobe smirked. "How can you look at that and _not_ think of it?"

Fuji, then getting what they were talking about, blushed hard. "H-hey…" he said weakly, though slightly accusingly at the same time. "It's not like you've never seen a guy without his shirt before." Fuji's breath could be seen puffing out of his mouth, looking like tiny icicles forming in the air.

"I've never seen _you_ without your shirt."

Fuji sighed. "I like you and all, but I'm half dead. This _isn't_ the time. You wouldn't jump Ryoma the minute he walked out of the shower, right? If he had a nasty scar running down his back?"

"That's sick," Atobe said.

"See?"

"No, not that. I meant that Ryoma is my _cousin_. That's sick. I don't even like him. He's not cute at all. He's just a little, annoying brat." Atobe wrapped his arms around Fuji loosely. "You, on the other hand…"

Fuji raised a hand a rested it on Atobe's chest, somewhat restraining him. "How can you not think Ryoma's cute?" he asked, trying to keep their conversation on topic. "He's as cute as a button."

"He's not related to you," Atobe pointed out. He pulled Fuji closer to him so that the smaller boy was practically sitting in his lap. Fuji sighed in relief just then as the pain in his back subsided. He arched his back ever so slightly. Atobe took that moment to wrap his hands around the back of Fuji's head gently and seize his lips in a tender kiss. Fuji was surprised at first, but didn't resist in the least. Yukimura had long since left the room. Fuji wrapped his arms around Atobe's shoulders, while the taller boy had his hands on Fuji's hips.

Atobe pulled away slowly. Fuji breath could still be seen in the room. Atobe wrapped the blanket around Fuji once again and smirked. "Are you warm now?" he asked, before leading Fuji down the stairs to get something to eat.

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"'What is mana? Mana is the source of life, and everything we breathe. It is in our atmosphere, and all around us. Without mana, life is impossible. Mana is existence. Mana is the air between our fingers, and the wind blowing our hair. Mana is energy, mana is everything we are. Mana is the language of the angels, and mana has been here since the beginning of time. Mana _is_ time.'" Fuji finally finished reading the passage from the textbook out loud and he breathed a sigh of relief. He was currently taking lessons about the history of magic and mana from Yukimura, and much like Yukimura in Fuji's world, this one was relentless, and didn't give him a second for a break.

The reason the passage had been so difficult to read was because, like the book had said, it was written in the language of the angels, the creators of this world, _and_ mana, and of course, you needed to expend mana to read it. So even reading a page was exhausting.

"Well done, Fuji. Many of the so called 'scholars' in our land wouldn't have been able to read that. However, you still have a ways to go," Yukimura said. Fuji didn't know whether to take that as a compliment or an insult, and decided to just let it go. "But you're learning very quickly." Yukimura motioned around him. They were currently sitting in two armchairs in the main library of the castle. There were books all over, and the shelves were filled. Books were lying on the ground, on top of shelves, on tables at the end of shelves, and all over unused armchairs. Though the chairs were used for storing books, the library was used quite often, as Fuji learned, when the princes kept walking in and out of the room during his lessons.

"Is everything in this library free for me to read?" Fuji asked.

Yukimura looked surprised. "I guess, I mean if you like reading the ancient texts so much. I found it very exhausting at first, though."

"No, I was just wondering," Fuji said.

Yukimura smiled. "Even if that's just the case, I'm glad to see your enthusiasm. I'll leave you here to do some individual work, then." With that, he left Fuji alone in the library with a lantern sitting on the end table next to him, though the overcast light streaming in from the window was pretty much enough for Fuji.

Fuji walked back and forth through the crowded shelves, stepping over or between piles and stacks of books lying all over the floor. He trailed his left hand over some of the bindings of the books, since his right hand was still healing. Over the past couple of days, his injuries had been healing well. Ryoma had awoken, too, a day and a half after Fuji had, and Yukimura had been right; Ryoma had had it a lot worse than Fuji. Fuji smirked inwardly at that.

Suddenly, Fuji felt a strong presence in the shelves somewhere, and he whipped out his dagger as fast has his left hand could…whip it out. He quietly, almost silently crept along the shelves ducking under the books now and then. But something told him that the presence was not human, nor did it mean any harm. Fuji stopped being so cautious, and now just crept along the shelves curiously. He stopped at the end of one of the shelves where he thought the magical presence was the strongest. His hand fell over a certain book, but when he pulled it off the shelf, he saw that it was just a volume of an old encyclopedia of some kind. He flipped through the pages mindlessly and slightly disappointed when the page stopped and he saw something shining resting inside the book. He saw a key of some sort, and there was a slip of paper under it.

Fuji raised an eyebrow and picked the key carefully out of the book. He unfolded the sheet of paper and read it, though it was written in the angelic language. _This key is of no use to anyone who finds it, unless you have a substantial amount of mana._ It was a simply note, yet it was cryptic. Fuji kept the key anyway. Peaking around the shelf, he spotted something he had never seen before resting in between the shelves. It was a hardbound notebook with gold binding on each side and a lock on one of the sides to prevent anyone from opening it. Fuji wondered why he had never noticed it before, but then he remembered that he was in a magical world. The owner of the notebook probably sealed it so that only if one found the key they could see the notebook.

Fuji carefully picked up the notebook from behind the shelf and brought it back over to the armchair that he was previously resting in. He sat down in it again and stared at the book for a while, deciding if he actually wanted to open it or not. He decided to, since he wondered what the consequences would be. Yukimura had said anything in this library was free for him to read, anyway. But did Yukimura even know the book was there? Fuji shrugged and stuck the key into the keyhole anyway. He turned it, and all of a sudden, a strong wind blew through the window, blowing books open and scattering papers all over the place. As soon as the wind died down, Fuji pulled the key out and opened the book. Suddenly, Fuji felt exhausted. He realized that the book must have taken mana to even open. The writer had sealed it well.

Opening the book, Fuji noticed that it was written in the angelic language. Great. He fingered through the pages, and he could tell that it was some kind of journal. The first page he had enough energy to read, so he promptly did so. The first page was an entry from a man at least in his early twenties, distressed like no other man Fuji had ever read about. This person's style of writing instantly captured Fuji's attention, and it was even more than a journal in his mind. It was already a story, even though he had just read a couple of lines.

Fuji flipped back to the front cover and found out that the journal belonged to no one other than the king himself, who had died a while ago, from what Fuji found out from the princes. He knew he shouldn't be reading it, since it was probably a keepsake. No, it _was_ a keepsake. Yukimura, he knew, if not the other princes, would kill him. Yet he couldn't tear his eyes away from the mysterious book.

The first page was introducing a young king. He was not yet the king, at least not until he married this aristocratic woman, an arranged marriage, of course. Fuji found out that this king was already in love with another woman, not as wealthy, but by all means as beautiful as the future queen and an amazing magician, and the king was distressed as to what he was going to do. Fuji knew it was a clichéd storyline, but the only thing was that it was no story; it was real. The king later did end up marrying the queen and keeping a secret relationship with the woman of his heart. The woman knew about his marriage to the queen and quite understood it, knowing that the king had his duties.

Later, both the queen and the woman had a boy, within a week of each other, though neither knew about the other. The son of the queen was a blue haired boy with a beautiful face and shining hair, as the king described it. The son of the woman was no less beautiful, with brown hair instead of blue. Fuji knew that the blue haired one was obviously Yukimura, but he wondered about the other son. How come he had never met this son? Fuji read on. He found out that these two boys often played with each other under the supervision of the king and the mother of the brown haired boy, since they were still a secret from the queen.

The queen later found out about the king's relationship with this magician woman and ordered the woman promptly executed, and she was. The son was kept a secret from the queen and was sent to another world for safety. This was the last entry in the king's journal, and Fuji wondered if he has used the last of his mana to send this boy to another world and protect him, while Yukimura was kept in this world. To Fuji, this brown haired boy was a mystery and completely entertained his thoughts. At least, until Yukimura walked into the library at that moment.

Fuji, with the journal still open in his lap, blinked at Yukimura, who stared at him. They looked at each other in such a manner for quite a while, until Fuji's face paled and Yukimura's eyes flashed dangerously. "What are you reading?" Yukimura asked, seemingly innocently, though both of them knew _exactly_ what Fuji was reading.

Fuji got straight to the point. "You said anything in this library was open for me to read!" he said, standing up from the chair and setting the journal down on the armrest.

Yukimura stalked over to Fuji swiftly, anger evident in his eyes. "I hadn't expected you to find that. And when you find someone else's journal, do you read it? Of course not!"

"I didn't know it was the _king's_ journal!" Fuji retorted back.

"And when you found out, you kept reading it?!" Yukimura shouted, now an arm's length away from Fuji.

"I—" but Fuji realized that he had nothing to say.

Yukimura took advantage of that opportunity. "Leave!" he ordered, and pointed to the door.

Fuji's eyes were now angry, too. He walked over to the door rapidly, turning around only once to say, "I will! And I won't come into this library again!"

* * *

Another cliffie!! Who's this browned haired boy? And will Fuji ever come back (again)? Keep reading to find out! And be courteous and review before you fave/alert! Thanks! 


	9. Chapter 9: The Unlikely Relative

**Mirror, Mirror**

**Summary:** Fuji falls through a mirror one day and lands in a complete different world. Sometimes, while doing a favor for someone else, you realize that they're actually doing a favor for you.

**Warnings:** Shounen-ai

**Pairings: **Atobe x Fuji

**Disclaimer:** Prince of Tennis is not mine.

I don't have time to type much right now, since I'm about to head to a party, but I'm glad I remembered to update! Read, review, and enjoy!

**Chapter 9: The Unlikely Relative:**

Yukimura sighed when Fuji had left the library and sat down on the same armchair that Fuji had been sitting in only a couple of moments ago, but not before carefully removing his father's journal from the armrest. He hadn't meant to scare Fuji away, and he was sure that Fuji had returned to his world by now, if he had found the way to the throne room (Yukimura found that the brown haired boy didn't have the best sense of direction in the world). He was just very protective of his father's and mother's things, since they were both dead now.

What Yukimura was the most curious about, though, was the fact that Fuji had found the key and book in the first place. He knew his father had told him a while ago that the book would be sealed with magic so that only people with his father's blood in them could find the key. And the book could not be seen without the key. How had Fuji found the key and book, then? Yukimura picked up the journal. He told himself that he would never read it, but he had changed his vow recently.

Recently, Yukimura had been having flashbacks, regarding a brown haired boy and himself, much younger, playing with each other, under the supervision of his father and another kind looking woman. Yukimura now told himself he would never read the book until he found out who these two people (the brown haired boy and the woman) were. Yukimura also vowed to himself that he wouldn't read the book, either, until he caught someone else reading it. Yukimura knew that he would be so puzzled by the other person reading it that he would want to read it for himself, and he knew the urge would be irresistible. And it was.

Yukimura took the book off of the armrest and delicately fingered through the pages, in the same manner that Fuji had. He had expected it to be written in the angelic language, and would actually be surprised if it were not. Yukimura immediately began reading about his father's adventures, with the door to the library now shut and locked. He was amazed by the fantastic story he found inside those old pages, and he could now understand why Fuji had kept reading it, though he knew it was wrong. He now sympathized with the brunette a bit and he wished he could take back some of the things he had said. But that thought soon left his mind as he reached the part in the journal that described the brown haired boy that he had so vividly dreamed about.

Yukimura then found something stuck in the pages that, somehow, Fuji had missed. It was a photograph of the brown haired boy. Yukimura dared not look at the photo without reading whatever was written on the back first. So the turned the photo over without looking at it and read the note. It said, _Dear Seiichi, I know you're the only person who will find this photo, because I sealed it with magic this way. I think you might remember this boy, and you might not, since he was long out of this world before you began maturing. In case you haven't found out already, he is your half-brother, related by blood. He might have found this journal already, but he couldn't have seen this picture. This was meant for only you. I hope you find this boy sometime, and perhaps reunite with him. He will probably have very few memories of you being his brother, but maybe you can entertain some memories out of the back of his mind. Sincerely, your father._

Yukimura then took a deep breath, after reading the touching, yet revealing letter and flipped the photo over. At first, he couldn't see the picture clearly, but then he realized that he needed to focus his mana to see the picture. How tricky his father was. Yukimura focused his mana on the image and the image only, and now he couldn't_believe_ what he was seeing. This brown haired boy…it looked exactly like a younger version of no one other than Fuji Syusuke!

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Fuji sat on his bed, head resting in his hands and elbows resting on his knees. He hadn't meant to anger Yukimura; he just figured that when Yukimura said that everything in the library was open for Fuji to read, he had _meant_ everything. Fuji knew that Yukimura hadn't expected him to find the key or the book, but it was blatantly obvious to anyone who had any sense of mana, especially the princes. Fuji still wondered why no one else had found or read it yet. How could someone _not_ find the book? Mana was practically _seeping_ through its pages.

Still, Fuji felt bad about reading Yukimura's father's journal. He knew that the man had long since passed on, and Yukimura probably hadn't even read the journal to respect his father's wishes. But how was Fuji to know? And when he had read the book, there seemed to be some kind of force urging him to read on, even when he found out that the book belonged to the late king.

Fuji thought that perhaps a bit of time spent in his world might calm him down or cheer him up a bit. Fuji never had to think about much in his world, since he compared it to the mirror world; he realized that the only thing that really mattered was school. In the mirror world, there were so many things that mattered and so many hidden mysteries; Fuji felt like his world was so…bland. Sometimes, though, like now, it could be a good thing. He missed school a bit, anyway.

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The next day, Fuji woke up to sunshine, just the thing he needed on a day like that. He yawned and stretched, feeling refreshed and calmed down a bit. He stepped out of his bed, changed, and went downstairs to leave. As soon as he stepped out of the door to meet Kikumaru, whom he normally walked to school with, the redhead pounced on him. "Fujikoooo!!!" he shouted, awfully excited.

As soon as Fuji pried the living magnet off of him, he said, "What?"

"Did you hear the news?!" Kikumaru asked.

"What news?"

The bouncy boy gasped. "You've got to be kidding me! It's all over the place!! The news about Atobe and Yukimura?"

Fuji cocked his head. This could be interesting. "What about them?" By 'all over the place', Fuji figured Kikumaru meant 'all the gossip', meaning that they were dating or something, but he was obviously proven wrong by Kikumaru's next bit of current events.

"They've been missing since yesterday!! Everyone has been looking for them!!!"

Fuji blinked. That's right, he thought. When Atobe had summoned the two bodies to the mirror world, they had gone missing in the real world. The brunette smirked. They wouldn't be returning for quite a while. Fuji realized that he would have to find that accursed orb before all of Japan was in chaos because of Atobe going missing. Once he found the orb, he would return all the bodies to the mirror world, and he would live there and never return to this world, since nine tennis players would've been missing by then, and Japan, if not the whole world, would become paranoid. "Hmmm…" Fuji said, trying to sound more perplexed than he actually was. "Hopefully they will be found soon."

Kikumaru sighed exasperatedly. "Is that all you can say?! Perhaps I should expect less from someone who hangs around Tezuka all the time…"

Fuji chuckled.

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Yukimura inspected the picture he was holding in his hands carefully. He knew that on the picture was two boys, and he was absolutely sure that they were Fuji and him (Yukimura)! They were both smiling at the camera benignly, smiling their million dollar smiles. Could they really be…brothers? The more the blue haired boy thought about it, the more it made sense. It pretty much pieced together all his doubts and flashbacks. The boy in his flashbacks had been Fuji, and the woman had been Fuji's mother, the one that had been executed. The mother had been an exceptional magician and Fuji no less. That had to be the reason that Fuji was able to find the book.

Yukimura, though, after all his reasoning, still could not believe it. Fuji…his brother? Jiroh's brother? Jiroh had been born about a year after Yukimura and the older princes (Yukimura, Atobe, Kikumaru, Tezuka, Saeki, Oshitari) and around when the middle princes had been born (Jiroh, Yuuta), and a year before the youngest prince (Ryoma) had been born. Yukimura was Jiroh's brother, Atobe and Kikumaru were twins, Tezuka and Ryoma were brothers, Saeki and Yuuta were brothers, and Oshitari was an only child. Fuji was…Yukimura's half brother, and a part of the family web, somewhere. Should Yukimura tell the other princes?

Yukimura laughed when he remembered the first words that had been said to Fuji (courtesy of Saeki) when the boy had first fallen through the mirror._Hey, who are you, another member of the royal family?_ The prince now knew that ironically, though the question had been sarcastic, it was _true_.

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The two boys walked along in silence. Finally, trying to break the ice, Kikumaru said, "Speaking of Tezuka, do you still like him? I mean, I remember you telling me a while ago that you had a crush on him or something, nya. You always hang around him, anyway. Are you over it?"

Fuji opened his eyes and stared at Kikumaru. "You remember that?" Fuji asked, clearly surprised and not even bothering to hide it. He almost didn't remember it himself. Now that he thought about it, though, he knew that he had indeed told Kikumaru about a year ago about his crush on the captain. With all the events and everything happening, he had nearly forgotten about the bespectacled boy. Sure, Tezuka existed as a prince in the mirror world, too, but he almost never talked to Fuji, not really taking a fancy like everyone else had to Fuji. He should've expected that; after all, it was Tezuka, even though it may have not been the same Tezuka. Even Ryoma had taking a liking to Fuji a bit, if not an admiration (or perhaps it was resentment; Fuji couldn't tell).

Tezuka in the mirror world liked to spend his time by himself in his room, or in the library occasionally. He wasn't even in the throne room a lot of times when all the other princes were. Maybe that was why Fuji had really paid no mind to him. The throne room was where the princes spent time together anyway, besides at the dining tables. Fuji smiled. He had really 'gotten over' Tezuka, hadn't he?

Fuji saw his friend waving a hand in front of Fuji's face. "Earth to Fujiko!" Kikumaru said.

Fuji shook his head. "Sorry about that." He remembered the time when he had first entered the mirror. He had been studying in his room with Tezuka. His mind had been on Tezuka completely then. He was thinking about Tezuka day and night, and he remembered that the first thing he had thought when falling into the mirror was that he was being such a klutz in front of _Tezuka_. "Yeah, I suppose I've gotten over that," Fuji replied. "There's someone else in my heart now."

Kikumaru's face brightened instantly, eyes shining with curiosity. "Who is it?! Does he or she go to Seigaku? Do I know this person?" he said, showering Fuji with questions.

Fuji smiled placidly once again. He _did_ have someone else in his heart, and no, they did not go to Seigaku. But Fuji wasn't going to tell Kikumaru who it was. Besides, the Kikumaru in the mirror world already knew, and this Kikumaru would find out soon enough, once Fuji found that orb. Fuji showed his affections in the mirror world quite blatantly. Yes, the person on his mind was Atobe.

Fuji had always found Atobe charming and his personality interesting, to say the least, ever since he had first met the boy. Fuji had watched the match between Atobe and Tezuka with intense eyes not only for Tezuka, but for Atobe as well. It was a match worth watching. Since then, he had liked but also hated Atobe for what he did to Tezuka. He didn't admire Atobe, he just _liked_ him. He didn't show it at all, of course, with his mind caught up with Tezuka, but as soon as Fuji entered the mirror world and met an Atobe whose attention was almost all on Fuji, the brunette really discovered his feelings and the fact that Tezuka was off his mind helped, too.

"Are you going to tell me?" Kikumaru asked. "We're nearing the school now! Tell me before people hear, nya!"

Fuji shook his head, still smiling. "I can't tell you," Fuji said. "Sorry."

"Oh,_come on_! Pleeeeaaassseee????" Kikumaru pleaded. Fuji felt bad about denying his friends wishes, but Kikumaru couldn't keep a secret if it was this strange. He could keep the secret about Fuji and Tezuka, but that was because it wasn't that strange. But if it was Atobe…Fuji didn't even want to think about how many people Kikumaru would tell.

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Atobe sat in the throne room, still shocked at how Fuji had dramatically entered and left the scene. It was obvious that there was something wrong, something that had originated in the library, which was only a door away, and it had something to do with Yukimura. There could only be one explanation: it was something about Yukimura's father's journal. The blue haired prince had told Atobe about finding it one day and vowing not to read it until someone else had read it.

Atobe glanced at the door to the library and shook his head. Yukimura had been in there for quite a while since he had entered. He couldn't possibly be reading the journal. Then what was keeping him so long? Atobe figured out of all the princes in the throne room, he was probably the only one thinking about it much. It was all because he had been thinking about how Fuji had stepped into the mirror. His thoughts again drifted back to Fuji. He found that they had been doing that for a while now.

Atobe wasn't stupid nor was he naïve. He knew that he had feelings for Fuji, and he had known that since Fuji had first stepped into the mirror. Atobe had never really opened up to anyone except for Yukimura, and now Fuji, too. He surprised himself sometimes at the things he told Fuji that he thought that he would tell no one with the exception of Yukimura.

Atobe stood up and walked over to the door of the library. Obviously it was locked. He tried the door once again, though he knew he could do nothing about it. Yukimura's locks were insanely impossible to pick, though it looked like a simple lock. Yukimura had sealed the room, too, so that no mana could get inside. Meaning Atobe couldn't summon Yukimura to him and ask what this was all about. He resorted to knocking and after a while pounding on the door.

"Seiichi," he said loudly. The other princes paid him no mind. "What's going on?"

After knocking on the door for so long that he was sure his knuckles were bleeding, it finally swung open to reveal a clearly shocked Yukimura, though the younger prince somehow tried to hide it. "What's going on?" Atobe asked once more, and Yukimura just shook his head.

"If I told you, you wouldn't believe me," he said quietly.

"Try me," Atobe said.

"I'll tell everyone at dinner."

"Why not now? They're all here, even Tezuka."

"Fine." Yukimura couldn't deny that he was dying to get out the news. He clapped his hands twice and everyone looked up from what they were doing. "I have an announcement to make, and it might shock all of you." He smirked, finally getting over the initial shock about Fuji. "But first, do you think you can guess what it is?"

Atobe almost hit himself in the forehead, and he would have, if he wasn't so dignified. "It has something to do with Keigo?" Kikumaru guessed. Yukimura shook his head.

"Something to do with Fuji," Ryoma said right after, and of course Yukimura nodded.

"You're…dating him?" Saeki asked, making Yukimura laugh out loud.

"No," he said. "Fuji belongs to Atobe." Everyone chuckled a bit at that.

"He's a girl after all?" Yuuta asked, and again, Yukimura shook his head.

"He died?" Jiroh asked sleepily, just waking up from a nap and not knowing what anyone was talking about. He just wanted to participate in the conversation.

"How would I have found that out from the library?" Yukimura said. He then turned serious, noticing that no one had any other guesses. "Alright everyone, playtime is over. You might not believe this. I was just reading my father's journal from long ago."

"You mean the one no one except those with your father's blood can read?" Ryoma asked.

Yukimura nodded. "Guess who was reading it a little while ago?"

"Fuji," all of the princes answered resolutely, and Yukimura nodded once again.

"But how?" Atobe asked.

Yukimura glimpsed at the picture in his right hand that had been found in the book and decided to remove the magical seal from it. He didn't know if it was his father's wishes or not, but he knew that his father would only want what was best for him. Suddenly, the picture became visible to everyone, but he made sure he was covering it with his hand. Still covering the front of the picture, Yukimura showed the back to Atobe. "Read this out loud," he instructed.

"Dear Seiichi, I know you're the only person who will find this photo, because I sealed it with magic this way. I think you might remember this boy, and you might not, since he was long out of this world before you began maturing. In case you haven't found out already, he is your half-brother, related by blood. He might have found this journal already, but he couldn't have seen this picture. This was meant for only you. I hope you find this boy sometime, and perhaps reunite with him. He will probably have very few memories of you being his brother, but maybe you can entertain some memories out of the back of his mind. Sincerely, your father." Atobe read.

"You mean the person on the front of that picture is your half brother?" Oshitari asked, keeping quiet for some time now.

"What does this have to do with Fuji?" Ryoma asked. Yukimura walked up to him, flipping the picture around so that his hand was no longer covering it, but it was facing him so that still, no one could see it.

"You tell me," Yukimura said, holding the picture steadily in front of Ryoma's face. "Who does this look like to you?"

Everyone instinctively leaned in. Ryoma's eyes widened further than Yukimura thought they could. "F-Fuji…"

* * *

Whoa! Fuji is Yukimura's half brother! I think most of you saw it coming, though, after the last chapter. It was kind of obvious. xDD;; But anyway, I hope you liked the chapter, and please be courteous and review before you fave/alert! 


	10. Chapter 10: The Orb of the Magician

**Mirror, Mirror**

**Summary:** Fuji falls through a mirror one day and lands in a complete different world. Sometimes, while doing a favor for someone else, you realize that they're actually doing a favor for you.

**Warnings:** Shounen-ai

**Pairings: **Atobe x Fuji

**Disclaimer:** Prince of Tennis is not mine.

Yay! I remembered to update today, too! I'm writing another fanfiction, but it might not be finished, because after writing the first chapter, I don't really know where to go! xD I'm also going to start writing another fanfiction, but not for the Tenipuri fandom. I'm probably going to post it in my LJ, which is linked on my profile, since it's not an anime fandom, either. Anyway, enjoy this story while you can! Please read, review, and enjoy!

**Chapter 10: The Orb of the Magician:**

Fuji kicked tennis balls around the courts absently. He was currently in tennis practice, of course, and it was still the same day that Kikumaru had asked him about Tezuka. It was afternoon, after school, and the tennis team was getting ready for the nationals, as they always were. Fuji had just finished a warm up drill with the other members of the team, and he hadn't really been thinking about tennis at all. The freshmen had had the day off that day, since every once in a while, they were given a day off. This meant that the seniors and regulars had to go around retrieving balls.

"Yo! Fujiko! Are you helping at all??" Kikumaru shouted.

Fuji glanced up, awoken from his reverie. "Ah, yeah. Sorry about that." He walked back to the fence and started picking up the balls on his racquet. He stood up and before turning around, he noticed a ball that was stuck in the fence. That's strange, he thought. He hadn't remembered anyone hitting a ball so hard that it would've gotten stuck in the fence, but he shrugged it off. Some things just happened. Fuji pried the ball out of the fence and rotated it around to find the brand to see if it belonged to Seigaku or not. It was then that he noticed that there was none. It was just a tennis ball, white streaks and all, without a brand name.

Fuji shook his head. He shouldn't think of that as unusual. Why? A lot of tennis balls didn't have brand names anyway. He thought that all of Seigaku's balls were Penn, but apparently he was mistaken. Fuji squeezed the ball to test if it was dead or not, but surprisingly, it was perfectly pressurized. It was almost as if it was new, since the ball was not the least bit dirty. Fuji decided to pocket it. It might belong to a different school, and he should return it. How he would figure out where it came from troubled his mind for a moment, but it didn't really matter to him anyway.

"FUJIKO!!" Kikumaru shouted again, even louder this time.

Fuji smiled benignly. "Sorry about that, I was just distracted by something." Kikumaru sighed and shook his head.

"You know, if you weren't so amazing, then I'd kick you off if I was captain," Kikumaru said jokingly.

"Isn't that the case with most members?" Fuji asked.

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"FUJI'S RELATED TO US???!?!" Jiroh shouted, immediately waking up more than he had ever been able to before. "THAT'S AWESOME!!!!"

"Not really related much…" Yukimura said. "Just to me, mostly."

"That's still interesting, to say the least," Oshitari said.

Ryoma shook his head. "How is he your half brother? I still don't get it."

"Well, his parents are my father and an extremely powerful magician mother, who was kind of poor. They were in love, but my father had to marry the queen, or my mother. We were both born within a week of each other after that, and my mother never knew Fuji existed, or his mother, the magician. After a while, though, she somehow found out about Fuji's mother and ordered her to be executed. Afterwards, my father wanted to protect Fuji, so he sent him off to another world at a very young age, and then my father died," Yukimura explained.

Atobe nodded. "I supposed if you think about it, it all makes sense. Fuji is the one chosen to be able to travel between the worlds because he is an incarnation of the most powerful magician. Also, he is related to us and in our generation, yet he wasn't cursed, which also heightened his chances of being 'the Chosen One'. It also explains why your father died so unexpectedly and why there was a random magician executed way back when."

"All the strings are tied, then," Yukimura said. "Everything comes together. There's only a slight minor task at hand now."

"What?" all the princes asked.

"We have to get Fuji back here again," Yukimura said, sighing.

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Fuji walked down the street with his best friend, Kikumaru Eiji, tossing the mysterious tennis ball up and down in his hand. Tennis practice had just finished, after a couple sprints and rounds of 'Suicides' for conditioning. By now, though, they had gotten used to it. Besides, it was better than laps.

"Why are you so obsessed with that tennis ball?" Kikumaru asked Fuji, who just shrugged.

"I'm not," he said.

"Yes you are. You've been playing with it ever since tennis practice ended. Why do you even have it, anyway? Doesn't it belong to Seigaku?"

Fuji shook his head. "No, it doesn't have the Penn brand name. It doesn't even _have_ a brand name."

"That's strange and all, but is it any reason to obsess over a tennis ball??" Kikumaru said.

"I'm not obsessing over it," Fuji replied without even looking at his friend, and Kikumaru sighed.

By now, the two were already at Fuji's house, and Fuji was unlocking the door and going inside. He didn't expect anyone to be home, and there wasn't anyone home. The two friends walked up to Fuji's room to study for a test that they had the next day, since they always did that. They had just walked into Fuji's room when the brunette noticed something strange—his mirror was…glowing? He couldn't tell if it was really glowing or not, but it seemed like it was. Fuji didn't know why; maybe it was just his eyes, but there was something different about the mirror. He, again, decided to take it lightly.

"Fujiko, what are you staring at?" Kikumaru asked. "You've been spacing out a lot lately, nya."

Fuji shook his head. "Nothing."

Kikumaru glanced at the mirror. "Hey, when did that get there? I've never seen it before. Is it one of Yumiko's old mirrors?"

Fuji caught the tennis ball. "Yeah," he lied. "She gave it to me when she got her new one the other day." He looked at the mirror, and it had stopped glowing. Strange, he thought and started tossing the ball up and down again. The mirror started glowing again. Fuji blinked. "Hey, Eiji, do you notice anything strange about that mirror?"

"Something strange about it? No, not really, why?"

"Oh, it's nothing," Fuji said. "It must be my imagination." Fuji tossed the ball to Kikumaru, who caught it quickly. They absentmindedly tossed it back and forth between each other, talking a bit, too. The mirror was glowing the entire time.

Fuji, in the silence, thought about the tennis ball. It was perfectly round, of course, and in any case, it was new. The fuzz was still on it, seeming like little shatters all over the ball, interrupted by the white line that curved around the ball every now and then. Fuji blinked again. Shatter marks? White lines? The mirror glowing? No brand name? It couldn't be…No. It couldn't be the orb. It _could not_ be the orb that the princes were so caught up by.

But the more Fuji thought about it and contradicted himself, the more it made sense. Shizuma had said two white lines, but she had only been looking at once side of it, and from one side, it certainly looked like it had two white lines. The fuzz actually _did_ look like shatter marks, if you looked closely and paid attention. But tennis hadn't even existed in the mirror world! He thought about this for a while and deducted that since he was a reincarnation of the magician, they would have somewhat of the same personality and thought patterns. Fuji loved tennis, and even though tennis didn't exist in the mirror world, it still existed a bit in the magician's (who created the orb) consciousness, and it was probably the first image that came to mind. All in all, a tennis ball was perfect, because it was small and portable. It was a bright green-yellow color, almost like a warning color.

Fuji was tired of all this thinking. He wanted to test it out, and actions_did_ speak louder than words. "Hey, Eiji, can you get up for a moment?" Fuji asked, breaking the silence. Kikumaru looked at him quizzically, but stood up regardless. Fuji stood up with him. "This is for the other day," he said.

Kikumaru barely had time to utter a small "Huh?" before he was shoved into the mirror, tennis ball in hand. Fuji easily stepped through after him.

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"So how do you plan on doing it this time?" Atobe asked Yukimura. "How are we going to get Fuji to come back?"

Yukimura shrugged. "I thought of the last plan; I think it's time for you guys to think a bit, for a change."

Kikumaru pointed a finger accusingly at Yukimura. "A plan that almost got us killed!"

"What are you talking about?" Saeki asked.

"Did you see how dangerous Fuji looked when he was angry? I don't want to see that face again!" Kikumaru whined.

Just then, there was a shout and then a thud near the mirror. All of the princes turned around, hooded cloaks still on, to see what had caused the disturbance. They found another Kikumaru Eiji lying on the floor rubbing his head, and Fuji standing just beside him with an accomplished look on his face. "Everyone, meet Kikumaru of my world," Fuji said triumphantly, and everyone gaped at him.

A tennis ball rolled across the floor to Ryoma's feet. The dark haired boy picked it up. "Hey, what's this?" he said. Shizuma, who had been sitting beside him, glanced at it, and her eyes widened.

"That's the orb! That's it! See the shatter marks and the white streaks??" she said excitedly, jumping out of her seat.

Ryoma turned the ball around and around in his hand. "Yeah, I _reeeaally_ see those shatter marks," he said sarcastically. "It's so shattered it feels fuzzy."

Jiroh took the ball out of Ryoma's hand and examined it. "Hey, it only has one white line on here! And it's not even a line; it goes in a circle!"

"Whatever! I did the best I could!" Shizuma shouted back at the two princes, shutting them up.

Fuji, the current pacifist, changed the subject. "So, Atobe, why don't you tell all of us how this works?" he said, hinting at the fact that Atobe already had his real body back.

Atobe glared at Fuji. "I'll reveal it when all the bodies are back in this world," he hissed. "Until then, keep your mouth shut."

Fuji smirked. "Yes, master," he said jokingly.

Atobe just shook his head and turned back to the two Kikumarus who were staring at each other. "You clasp hands with your mirror self, like this." He took each of Fuji's hands and held them in each of his own, corresponding to each other as if they were facing each other (like they were) and held them up in front of his face. "And the body should disappear back into the soul."

Meanwhile, Fuji's world's Kikumaru was shouting at the mirror Kikumaru. "Who the heck is this?!?! He looks just like me, in weirder clothes!!!"

Mirror Kikumaru was now mad, too. "Me?! Weirder clothes?!? You've got to be kidding me!! No sensible person wears _blue_ and _red_ together!"

Yukimura sighed and rubbed his temples. "It'll all be over soon," Fuji assured him.

"You said you have to go through this every day?" Yukimura asked Fuji, referring to a story that Fuji had told him about Kaidoh and Momoshiro.

Fuji nodded. "Yeah, But Tezuka usually makes them do conditioning by running laps around the courts if they fight too much."

Suddenly, there was a bright flash and the high pitched shouting ceased. Yukimura and the other princes, along with Atobe and Fuji, sighed in relief. "Glad that's over with," Ryoma said.

"Sometimes, you have to use force," Atobe said, shaking his head.

"He started it!" Mirror Kikumaru said.

"Sure he did," Fuji said, surreptitiously taking off Kikumaru's cloak and draping it around himself so that the redhead didn't even notice.

"Hey, that's my cloak!" Kikumaru said, finally noticing the lack of weight on his back.

Fuji smiled. "Sure it is."

Everyone's eyes widened in unison, with the exception of Yukimura, Atobe, and Fuji. "That's Eiji's cloak!!!" Saeki shouted first.

"It worked!" Shizuma shouted afterwards, clapping her hands. "Good work, Fuji!"

"How did you find this orb? I bet it's the same as a bunch of other ones in your world," Oshitari asked curiously. "Shizuma didn't really give the best oral description of it, anyway."

Fuji took the orb back from Jiroh, who had been playing with it and bouncing it on the floor. "There's normally a brand name printed right here," he said, pointing to the space between the 'two white streaks'. "Our school carries all Penn tennis balls, which is what this is called normally. But this one doesn't have a brand name, yet it's new, which was something I found strange. I took it home and I was going to return it to another school that I thought it came from, since a ball as perfect as that would probably be missed. And then I noticed that the mirror was glowing whenever I would move the ball. So I just assumed this was the orb you guys were all hyped up about."

Fuji tossed the ball to Ryoma, who started turning it around in his hands again. "So, what is this ball normally used for?" he asked in his usual tone, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

Fuji laughed at the irony.

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Fuji crept quietly into Atobe's room, closing the door behind him. He had been doing this every night since he had been first staying at the castle. Atobe and he got along fairly well. Well, not _fairly_ well, more like _very_ well. They would talk about all sorts of things, Fuji explaining daily life in his world, and Atobe explaining a day in his own. This time, Fuji had something to confess to Atobe, and it was about Yukimura's father's journal. He hadn't told anyone about that yet, and he thought Atobe would be the best person to tell, since Atobe was the closest prince to him, and Yukimura was right after that.

"You're here again?" Atobe asked before Fuji even had a chance to turn around from closing the door. The dark room suddenly became illuminated as the lamps and the fireplace were lit.

Fuji nodded. "I have something to confess," he said.

Atobe had the feeling that he already knew what Fuji was going to say. He had the feeling that Fuji was going to tell him about the journal, but he kept his mouth shut anyway. He wanted to see how Fuji would present it. "What is it?"

Fuji sighed. "You're probably going to kill me for this. I can't believe Yukimura hasn't yet, anyway. But I was in the library the other day and I read Yukimura's father's journal without permission because I thought that Yukimura meant that everything in the library was actually open for me to read."

"Relax, Fuji," Atobe said, surprisingly. "I don't think he'd have expected you to find it."

"Why not? That's the exact same thing he said when he walked in. Do you know something about it?"

Atobe nodded. "Yeah. Only people with Seiichi's father's blood in them can read that journal."

"Are you sure?" Fuji asked, not quite believing what he was hearing.

Atobe nodded. "Positive. And I also know why you have Seiichi's father's blood in you, or in other words, why you were able to find the key and journal."

Fuji blinked for a moment, and then his eyes widened. "You don't mean…that brunette…who was sent to a different world…"

Atobe nodded. "Yeah. That would be _you_."

Fuji shook his head. "You've _got_ to be kidding me! There's no way…"

Atobe cut him off. "Think about it. If this is the case, then it all makes sense. Here, Seiichi left a picture of the brunette in my room in case you decided to come and talk to me."

"So he noticed?" Fuji asked.

"Who wouldn't have?" Atobe countered, retrieving the picture from the desk by his bed. He handed it to Fuji and created a ball of fire by Fuji's face so that he could see it. "There's no way you're going to tell me that that person isn't you. It's a spitting image of you."

Fuji gasped. "You're right. And I'm with Yukimura…I don't remember any of this, though. And I was clearly old enough to begin remembering things like that."

Atobe shrugged. "They probably wiped your memory before they sent you away."

"You can do that?"

"Sure. Not many people do it, though, since it's a highly advanced spell, and it's pretty much useless in battle. The clerics and mages learn it, though. And I think Saeki will have to learn it at some time."

"I still can't believe that I'm related to him…"

"You say it like it's a bad thing," Atobe said, chuckling.

"No, of course it's not a bad thing!" Fuji said quickly. Then he smirked. "It's not like we're going to be having children together, anyway."

Atobe laughed. "I didn't think that was what you were referring to."

"I didn't think so, either. It was just a random thought that crossed my mind. We've only kissed a couple times, anyway."

Atobe smiled at Fuji. "Want to make that one more?" He leaned in and kissed Fuji tenderly on the lips, without waiting for him to reply. Of course, Fuji wouldn't have had any objections, anyway.

After Atobe had pulled away, Fuji smiled. "Do you think that it's sick, because now you know I'm related to you?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Remember a little while ago when I was healing from my injuries; you thought that kissing Ryoma would be sick because he was your cousin? Do you think that kissing me is sick because I'm your half-cousin?"

Atobe chuckled again. "Not really. You're too pretty."

Fuji laughed. "That explains a lot, neh?"

Atobe nodded.

Fuji leaned his head on Atobe's shoulder. "By the way, _Keigo_, you haven't confessed your undying love for me yet."

Atobe rolled his eyes. "You and your need for attention. I confess my undying love for you. Happy?"

Fuji yawned and stretched his arms. "That's better. I love you too, Keigo." With that, he drifted off to sleep. Atobe wrapped his arms around Fuji's shoulders and pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

* * *

Ahh, sweet, sweet fluff. xDD Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and please be courteous and review before you fave/alert! Thanks! And a big special thanks to all my reviewers! 


	11. Chapter 11: The Powers of Yukimura

**Mirror, Mirror**

**Summary:** Fuji falls through a mirror one day and lands in a complete different world. Sometimes, while doing a favor for someone else, you realize that they're actually doing a favor for you.

**Warnings:** Shounen-ai

**Pairings: **Atobe x Fuji

**Disclaimer:** Prince of Tennis is not mine.

Sorry for the extra day's wait! I'm really sorry! But I'm glad that it's finally December! And it finally started snowing where I live! I'm more working on drawing, and I'm still working on a fanfiction that's for a fandom that's not Tenipuri, for once. But I will still upldate this one! Please read, review, and enjoy! Oh yeah, and we're nearing the end of the fiction!

**Chapter 11: The Powers of Yukimura:**

Fuji woke up in Atobe's bedroom, in Atobe's bed. The cold wind blew in from the window. It _was_ still winter in this world, and it would be for quite a while. But Fuji was grateful for the cool air. After all, he had had quite a day yesterday. He tried to remember what he was doing, and then he recalled the orb, and the fact that he had found it. Now Atobe, Yukimura, _and_ Kikumaru were full once again. Kikumaru would undoubtedly find out about Atobe and Yukimura, but Fuji doubted he would tell anyone. They'd all find out soon enough, anyway. The question was _how_ soon.

Fuji pulled the thick blanket up to his chin and snuggled into Atobe's chest. Atobe, noticing that Fuji had stirred, tightened his hold on the smaller boy. He had actually been awake for quite a while, thinking about the same thing Fuji had. He was thinking about how he would tell the others about Yukimura and him. He knew they would understand, but he didn't like admitting his weaknesses, even if it was something he couldn't help. He knew it wouldn't be good to delay telling them the news, but he just couldn't bring himself to tell.

"You awake?" Fuji whispered, and Atobe nodded.

"For a while," he replied.

"Oh? And you stayed here?"

Atobe smiled. "It's warmer here."

Fuji shivered. "You guys should seriously think about putting curtains on the windows or something. I've already taken one of the spare blankets in the chest and hung it over the window and door in my room."

"My room is the only one without curtains. Oh, and your room, too, since it used to be Jiroh's. Jiroh is a very light sleeper, so we needed him to listen for trouble at night, and it wouldn't help if he had curtains over the windows or anything. I don't have curtains in my room because I don't mind the cold and I can always create fire. I forgot to mention that."

Fuji sighed and rolled onto his back. "Looks like I'll need to do some major exploring of this castle, then."

"We'll look around it once we're all reunited with our bodies. We'll have all the time in the world then."

Fuji nodded. "Right now, reuniting everyone comes first."

Atobe got out of the bed and draped his cloak over himself. No matter how tolerant he was of extreme temperatures, there was a limit. He stepped into Fuji's room and got the brunette's cloak for him.

"Is it always this cold in the winters for this country?" Fuji asked, stepping out of the bed himself.

Atobe nodded. "This isn't actually the coldest we've had here. The summers aren't very hot, either. We're just a cold region in general."

"Exact opposite of us," Fuji remarked. They were used to having these pointless conversations to pass the time as the two made the long journey to the kitchen and dining room. Most of the time, no one was up earlier than them, but today, Yukimura was waiting for them, sitting on a chair that was resting against the wall, hands resting on his knees, smiling pleasantly. Fuji froze. His eyes widened. "Ah…"

"It's okay, Fujiko," Yukimura said, using the name he had first referred to Fuji as. How foolish he had been back then for not noticing it. And Ryoma had? He laughed at the idea. The cool wind blew into the dining room window this time, rustling the leaves of the flowers that were always kept on the table. "I'm sorry for snapping at you earlier."

Fuji shook his head. "No, it's my mistake. I'm sorry for reading your father's journal. I really shouldn't have."

Yukimura chuckled. "You don't have to apologize for that. After all, he's_your_ father, too." He then tapped his chin lightly. "To think…I was flirting with my half brother when you first came here?"

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"Echizen!" Fuji called as he walked around the school gates to find the young tennis prodigy. He was currently in his own world, looking for the rest of the tennis players to send them to the mirror world. He decided to get the most difficult ones done first. How fun this would be. Time had not passed, so it was still the same day that he had asked Kikumaru to come with him and pushed him into the mirror.

The dark haired boy looked up and found Fuji waving to him. "What do you want?" he asked.

"I…uh…" Fuji hadn't really thought before doing this. The reason was that his lies always sounded more convincing when he was panicked. "I'd like to show you something." He doubted he could deceive Ryoma with a lie as vague as that one, but surprisingly, the younger boy followed him. "Echizen?"

Ryoma looked up at Fuji. "When he has that face on, Fuji-senpai isn't lying."

Huh? Fuji thought. Nevertheless, he led both of them to his house.

Fuji had taken the mirror from his bedroom into the foyer when he had found the orb, so that it was easier to access, and so that there were no confusions. After all, you don't really know what to think if Fuji was leading you to his bedroom. Fuji took the tennis ball from his pocket after he and Ryoma had walked into his house. He tossed it up lightly and took a deep but muted breath.

"Check this tennis ball out," Fuji said, tossing it to Ryoma, who caught it effortlessly.

"Is that all you wanted to show me?" Ryoma asked, examining the tennis ball closely.

"Sorry about this," Fuji said, changing the subject mysteriously. He gave Ryoma a light push, which was enough to send him into the mirror. In the confusion, the tennis ball fell out of Ryoma's hand and right back through the mirror. Fuji, picking it up, shrugged. It was less effort for him.

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"Tezuka," Fuji said with a serious expression on his face. Tezuka was the last person he was to fetch and get into the mirror world. He purposefully saved Tezuka for last, since he wanted to talk to the Tezuka he knew about something before he was morphed into the Tezuka who almost never spoke a word to him.

Tezuka glanced at Fuji and gave an acknowledging nod of his head. "What is it, Fuji?" They were both standing outside the school gates, right after school had ended. The day before was the day that Fuji had taken most of the people into the mirror world, and the only one left now was Tezuka. His speculations had been correct; Japan was major chaos at the loss of the teenage boys. But he wouldn't have to endure the guilt for much longer, Fuji thought, because as soon as Tezuka was once again in the mirror world, he was going to stay there forever, and shatter the mirror that connected him to this world. If he ever came back, the guilt of 'kidnapping' all the boys would be too much for him to bear. But first, Fuji had resolved to talk to the Tezuka he had known for a long time once more.

"Would you care walk home with me?" Fuji asked. _For the last time…_

Tezuka nodded. "Sure."

The two of them walked in silence for a while, just staring into the distance. The sun wasn't even close to setting, since it was summer in Japan, and the sun didn't set until much later. "Have you heard about everyone?" Fuji asked Tezuka. After all, the missing teenagers were what everyone was talking about these days.

Tezuka nodded. "Who wouldn't have?"

Fuji sighed and placed his hands behind his head. "So it started with Atobe and Yukimura, huh?" he said, not really meaning anything from the statement. It was more of a rhetorical question.

Tezuka nodded. "Do you have any ideas as to what might've happened to them?" he asked.

Fuji, as easily as a warm knife through butter, lied. "Unfortunately, no. I was just trying to make conversation," he admitted truthfully.

Tezuka nodded again. "Figures." Fuji laughed. "And you're lighthearted? With all these people missing? Your best friend?"

Fuji shook his head. "Of course not. But I figure that there's really nothing I can do about it. No one has the slightest idea as to where they are."

"Aren't you worried?"

"Yes, I'm very worried. But I don't really have much to say," Fuji said, looking down, trying to convince himself that he wasn't lying. It was difficult.

They walked in silence again. From the still air that hung around them, Fuji could tell that Tezuka knew he was lying but didn't want to push it any farther. The sun felt hot above them, and the school uniforms actually felt tight, even though they were as loose as could be. Fuji undid the first button on his absentmindedly.

"Have you even loved someone?" Tezuka suddenly asked Fuji.

Fuji merely turned to the taller boy and raised an eyebrow. "That's an interesting question, coming from you."

Tezuka said nothing.

"But I suppose I'd have to answer 'yes', then. I have loved someone, and I still do love them very much," Fuji stated and smiled. "I love you, Tezuka."

Tezuka looked at Fuji, a little bit of surprise evident on his face. "What?"

"I love many people, like our fellow Regulars, my family, people from different teams, and people from all around the world," Fuji explained. _And people not from this world,_ he added in his mind. _But you don't have to know that_. If this was the last time he was going to talk to the Captain Tezuka that he knew, he might as well let it all out. But Fuji couldn't do that; it just wasn't in his nature. He didn't really open his heart to anyone. Come to think of it, it was kind of like how Atobe acted.

The two were now nearing Fuji's house. He could see it in the distance, white with a green lawn in the front and flowers lining the concrete sidewalk. There were a couple trees in the side and back yard, and the side yard was fenced in, much like many of the houses on his street. _So, as the last time I talk to you,_ Fuji thought, _I'd like to say goodbye._ A single tear fell from Fuji's eye. _May you open your heart and learn to speak to others more openly than me. That would make me happy._

Fuji opened the door to his house quietly._ But I'd also like to say hello._ He stepped into his house with Tezuka following right behind him. _And welcome to the new world in which you will be living._ And with a quick push, Tezuka toppled into the mirror, with Fuji stepping in after him with gracefulness.

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All of the princes turned around to look at the mirror simultaneously. It was interesting, since nothing was happening to the mirror, but they all had the same feeling: something was going to happen _soon_. Tezuka only looked at the mirror after everyone else, since he was the only one without a body right now. Atobe and Yukimura hadn't told anyone yet, and the rest of the princes had been too excited about getting bodies to notice that Fuji had never brought their bodies back into the mirror world. They had just assumed. Except for one prince, the youngest one.

The other day, Fuji had told them that Tezuka was the only one left. Ryoma had glanced at Fuji, Atobe, and Yukimura, but had said nothing. That night, while most of the princes were sleeping, and Ryoma was still awake on the roof, he had seen Fuji's light on. He floated down to Fuji's room and greeted him. Then, Fuji had been forced to tell it all, and Ryoma was the only one who knew now. The rest of the princes would probably figure out some time later, but Atobe and Yukimura wanted to delay the news until as late a possible.

Just then, Tezuka toppled into the mirror, and the mirror Tezuka was at his side in an instant, joining the two Tezukas immediately. Fuji stepped into the mirror right afterwards, only to be face to face with Tezuka, all one and whole again. He stared at Fuji for a moment, and Fuji just looked back innocently. Tezuka shifted awkwardly, and it was the first time Fuji had seen him like that. "Thanks," he said, much to everyone's surprise. "A lot."

Fuji smiled, and his face seemed to light up with happiness. "My pleasure." Tezuka then escaped out of the throne room and to his own room, probably.

The first prince to get a word in after that display was Saeki, who gasped. "Kunimitsu actually spoke to Fujiko!" he shouted, pointing at Fuji. "He actually _spoke_! To someone that's not in our family!"

Yukimura wagged a finger. "You seem to be forgetting something, Kojiroh," he said, bringing a certain photo out of his pocket.

"That's right!" Saeki said. "Fujiko—"

Fuji held up a hand. "I heard all about it," he said, walking up to Yukimura. "My dear brother." They then embraced each other warmly, and the other princes clapped, with the exception of Tezuka, of course. "I love you," Fuji said quietly to Yukimura, who could only nod back. Fuji pulled away. "I love all of you. You are all part of my family, and I'd like to say thank you, for bringing me here."

Oshitari tilted his head. "Bringing you here? Who said it was us that brought you here?"

Fuji smirked and looked at Yukimura. "I did. Isn't that right, dear brother?"

Yukimura sighed and smiled in defeat. "I suppose I'm found out, then."

All of the princes gathered around the brothers quickly and anxiously. "What are you talking about?" Atobe asked.

"Oh dear, even Keigo doesn't know about the extent of your powers?" Fuji said. "He's your closest friend."

"I had intended to keep it a secret. But I guess I'll let all of you figure it out."

Ryoma nodded. "I get it."

"As expected," Fuji said, but all of the other princes were still waiting. He walked out of the mob of royalty and started pacing around the room. "Tell me, princes, what is Seiichi's power?" he asked.

"To create anything that can reflect on the spot," Atobe answered immediately. "The prince of vanity."

"That's right," Fuji said. "And what noun do you think of when you think of the world 'reflect' or 'vanity'?"

"Mirror?" Yuuta said.

Fuji nodded. "Beautiful."

One by one, the princes began to figure it out. Their eyes widened like Fuji wouldn't believe, and some of their jaws dropped to the ground (metaphorically speaking). Fuji would've loved to have his camera at that moment. "Y-you don't mean…" Atobe started.

"Seiichi?" Jiroh said, staring at Yukimura. "Since when did you have such powers? I mean, I knew we could all do something in the other worlds, but you? Create a _portal_ to the other world? How…?"

Yukimura smiled. "We can just say that I've been practicing." They continued to stare at their blue haired prince, until the lighthearted air disappeared when Yukimura suddenly flinched and clenched his hands into fists. His eyes squeezed shut, and Jiroh was at his side in an instant, with Atobe and Fuji standing not far away from them, Fuji holding on to Atobe's arm in surprise.

"Seiichi! Hey!" Jiroh said, supporting Yukimura's weight with his shoulder. "What's going on?"

Yukimura chuckled wryly. "I suppose the effect is starting to take place now."

Fuji let go of Atobe's arm immediately. "Effect?" he said, stalking up to Yukimura seriously. "What effect?"

"I knew that if I didn't create that portal, we'd never be full again. I knew you were in another world, so I created a portal to that world. But of course, I don't have that much mana. So to compensate, the mirror is sucking my mana away the longer it exists. And every time someone passes through it, the pulling gets stronger." Yukimura sighed. "I'd never expected it to have this kind of effect on me, though, until much later." He looked up at Fuji, now that he was leaned over. "Looks like you're going to have to go back to your world. That is, if you ever want to see all the people you left in that world ever again."

Fuji shook his head. "I can't do that! I can step in there and say my goodbyes, and I'll come back."

Atobe interrupted. "There is only time for one more pass through the mirror. If you pass through it twice, Seiichi is likely to lose his life. The mana depletion will be even faster the more you pass through it."

"I can't leave you," Fuji said, making eye contact with all of the princes, one by one. "You're my family. My _real_ family."

"Fuji, you have to go back," Yukimura said. "We didn't want to cause trouble for you. I was originally intending just to have to fetch all of our bodies and then pass through it once more to return to your world. I made all the calculations, to know exactly how much mana I will have left once this was over with. Everything was going almost exactly as planned. You entered and left a couple times in the beginning, though, which I knew would skew my calculations. I might have less mana in the end, I thought to myself. But I didn't want to make you worry, so I said nothing about it, and just trained to obtain more mana. But apparently I wasn't keeping up with the depletion."

"You didn't want us to worry?! What kind of a valid reason is that?" Fuji shouted. "And my world?! What is my world now? Everything is in chaos because all of you are missing. This is the world that I was originally from. I can't leave it!"

"Fuji, this is better for you," Atobe said, surprisingly. "We don't want to separate you from the people you've been with all your life."

Fuji looked at Atobe with passionate eyes. "What are you saying?! I've been with all of you my entire life! Don't tell me that you don't want to separate me from the ones I love, because I love you guys! What will sending me back do for you? What good will come out of it?"

"We'll know you're safe," Atobe said, taking Fuji and leading him to the mirror. "Hurry, there's no time left!"

Fuji glanced at Yukimura, and then at all the other princes once more. Just then, Ryoma, the youngest prince, did something unexpected. "Just listen to what you guys are saying!" he said vehemently, not being able to take it anymore. "It's not making any sense at all!"

Atobe took his eyes off Fuji for a moment, but still gave him a push toward the mirror, sending Fuji flying into it. "Goodbye," Atobe said, turning back to Fuji.

But all of a sudden, instead of Fuji falling into the mirror once more, the mirror shattered as Fuji fell toward it, but all of the princes could see that he hadn't touched the mirror. What was going on? In an instant, Fuji dropped to his knees in front of the shattered mirror, looking at the ground. All of the princes were shocked.

Fuji brought his right hand down very slowly, to reveal his fingers that were tightly clenched to his flame dagger. The tip of it was chipped slightly, and the mirror shards were tinted red. Fuji dropped the dagger, facing away from the princes. "I…I can't go back. I can't leave you all," he said. "Even if I never see anyone I knew in my world again. I will never leave you."

* * *

This chapter was a little more sappy than usual, and I apologize if you don't like that. See you all next chapter! Please be courteous and review before you fave/alert. Thank you very much! 


	12. Chapter 12: The Hidden Village

**Mirror, Mirror**

**Summary:** Fuji falls through a mirror one day and lands in a complete different world. Sometimes, while doing a favor for someone else, you realize that they're actually doing a favor for you.

**Warnings:** Shounen-ai

**Pairings: **Atobe x Fuji

**Disclaimer:** Prince of Tennis is not mine.

I think I'm going to shoot myself one day. xDDD I'm really sorry for not updating! Please forgive me! I was supposed to update yesterday, but I was at a friend's house and didn't have access to my files! D; Really sorry, once again! But anyway, this chapter is pretty long! And it's the second to last chapter...so...I don't know if you're happy or sad about that! But please read, review, and enjoy anyway!

**Chapter 12: The Hidden Village of Renegades:**

The princes' attention was turned to Fuji immediately, since half of them were gathered around Yukimura. But with Yukimura fine and Fuji making such a commotion, it was kind of hard not to notice it. Besides, Fuji had just _broken_ the mirror that he had come in through, and he wasn't ever going to be able to go back to his world. Ever. None of them would be able to, since Yukimura was probably never going to do something like creating a portal to another world again.

"I can't go back," Fuji repeated, more loudly and confidently this time. He got to his feet and turned to face the other princes, still gripping his dagger securely. "I will never go back."

All that could be heard in the room was Yukimura's labored breathing as everyone was still registering what had just happened. A ton of news had just been found out, and on top of that, the mirror was broken. Shattered. To pieces.

"Fuji…" Atobe said. "I can't believe you had the strength to do something like that."

"There's nothing that can be done about it, now," Ryoma said, crossing his arms and returning to his cool self.

A chilling wind blew into the window of the throne room, blowing all of the capes of the princes. Fuji thought about Yumiko, his parents, the Seigaku regulars, all of Seigaku's rival schools, tennis in general, the National Tournament, Coach Ryuuzaki, Sakuno and her friend, and everything else that he had left in his world, and tears began to form in his eyes. No. He wasn't going to cry here. After he had done something so resolute and bold? He wouldn't break down; not in front of all the other princes, at least.

Fuji took a deep breath and let out of all of his sobs in the breath. "Saa…I suppose there really _is_ nothing that can be done about it."

After that, the first one to speak was Jiroh. "Does that mean Fujiko is going to be staying with us forever?!" he shouted excitedly. "I'm so happy!"

Atobe's frown turned into a smirk as he disappeared from the room. Fuji barely got a look at him before he was gone and he was surrounded by all the princes. Atobe then returned to the room shortly after, holding something in his hand that Fuji couldn't tell what it was. The princes made an opening for Atobe, who was carrying a sword that was wrapped in a blanket and tied with thin rope.

He tossed it to Fuji, who caught it with surprised hands. "If you're going to live here, you better learn to start fighting here, too," he said simply. "Seiichi made this for you a little while ago, using some of what little mana he had left. It's for his dear brother," Atobe said. He glanced at Yukimura, who nodded at him. "I figured now would be the right time to present this gift to you."

Fuji unwrapped the sword carefully and looked it up and down with glittering eyes. It had an incredibly sharp blade, with a stylish yet practical nook near the tip and two mini blades coming out of the hilt next to the main blade. The whole thing was obviously metal, and the hilt was wrapped tightly in cloth for grip. It was shaped hexagonally, though the edges were rounded a bit by the cloth, and it wasn't as round as a tennis racquet, but Fuji still felt that it fit into his hand perfectly. The hilt had a beautiful blue jewel sparkling proudly near the blade. He lifted it up with his right hand, dropped the blanket, and held it in front of him with both hands. "It's…it's magnificent. I don't even know what to say…" Fuji said. "It's breathtaking."

"You shouldn't say anything about it, then!" All of the princes turned as a newcomer ran into the room with a panicked look on their face. It was one of the messengers that patrolled the outer regions of the palace. "Right now isn't the time to talk!" With words like those, the happy aura that surrounded the princes was instantly shattered, just like the mirror.

Atobe summoned the messenger across the throne room so that he was standing in front of the prince. "What's going on?" he demanded, scaring the poor boy out of his wits.

Just then, Tezuka, who had been absent throughout the entire ordeal, stepped into the room. "The castle is being attacked by a neighboring village, the one that is hidden from outsiders. We have no way of knowing their true power since we've never seen them before."

An arrow flew through the throne room and skimmed just past Tezuka's head dangerously. Atobe stepped over to where the projectile had penetrated the wall. His eyes widened and he beckoned to Fuji, pulling the arrow out of the wall at the same time. "Fuji, do you remember this?" he said, pointing at the tip of the arrow but being careful not to touch it.

Fuji walked closer to where Atobe was until the arrow was in clear view. He gasped. "Poisons…deadly…" he said.

"It's heavier, but it's definitely of the same descent. The arrow is from the tribe of that assassin who I had killed before. Do they want revenge? Or are they truly our enemies? She was the one who attacked us, first."

"We're about to find out," Fuji said grimly. "I suppose now's the time to test out this sword." An eerie silence followed, and then an arrow just flew in the window and narrowly missed Yukimura.

That was when all the princes came to their senses. "Everyone! Protect Seiichi!" Atobe barked. "Kojiroh, you stay here and tend to Seiichi's wounds while trying to prevent anything from happening to him. Yuushi! Grab the bow and snipe from the window with Jiroh and Yuuta! Kunimitsu, Ryoma, Eiji, Syusuke! Come with me! We're heading out!"

"Reinforcements?" Ryoma asked while running alongside Kikumaru behind Atobe and Fuji and in front of Tezuka.

"They'll come. We need to get rid of these people as soon as possible," Atobe replied without glancing back.

"I heard their chief was 'undefeatable'," Kikumaru said. "He's found some advanced spells and magic techniques that negate a lot of things that happen to him, and sometimes, they amplify his powers, too."

"Everyone is able to be beaten by something," Fuji stated simply. "The matter is finding it before it's too late."

Finally, the five reached the front of the castle, where quick knights and ninjas under the king's command, and even mercenaries who were passing by were already warding off the assassins as well as they could. Shizuma was leading them, with a dagger of her own.

"Heh, the girl's even out here before us," Ryoma said.

"It's called being fashionably late," Atobe replied, fighting off assassin after assassin. He was back to back with Fuji, who was holding his own quite well. Swords and metal clashed loudly, and they were all separated, except for Atobe and Fuji, who still stood at each other's backs, looking out for each other. Ryoma was off somewhere, nimbly dodging attacks with the help of his small frame and the fact that he could float off of the ground. Kikumaru was teleporting from place to place, fighting off assassins and helping whichever prince or warrior under royal command that he could. Tezuka was merely fighting, like Atobe and Fuji, though doing quite a good job at it, again, like Atobe and Fuji.

Fuji, while spinning showily and taking quick glances around himself for oncoming warriors and attackers, spotted the head of the village. He had done a pretty good job of disguising himself, wearing clothes like a normal fighter from the hidden village, but from the quickness and strength of his attacks compared to everyone else, it was clear that he was the leader of the clan. Fuji wanted to get closer to him, but he was left with Atobe, watching his back, and he couldn't get any closer to the chief because of the oncoming hoards of attackers.

Suddenly, Fuji spotted an arrow whizzing from the castle, laced with poison, headed straight toward the chief. He mentally cheered at Oshitari, for surely the chief wouldn't notice it. Indeed he didn't, but instead of penetrating the thin cloth he was wearing, it simply struck some kind of a barrier around the chief, not even leaving a scratch. Fuji could imagine Oshitari cursing in the castle. Was the chief really unbeatable? No, he couldn't be. Fuji couldn't think that way, or else there would be no hope.

Fuji had to take his eyes off of the chief as he was faced with an attacker that proved to be stronger than the others. His face was masked a bit differently, and there was also something odd about what he was wearing. He was forcefully attacking Fuji, whom he was clearly aiming for, and not even sparing a glance at Atobe. Being pushed back, he didn't want to be a bother to Atobe, so Fuji separated from him, glancing at him and giving him a look that said, "We'll meet up again later." Atobe nodded at him, and in a moment, they couldn't see each other at all.

Fuji was still defending this mysterious assassin's forceful attacks, though not quite pushing himself to the limit. It was clear that the attacker was fighting hard and pushing himself, and it almost made Fuji laugh. It reminded him of when he played tennis against an opponent, and he couldn't bring himself to try his hardest.

Suddenly, the black mask fell off of the man's face, and Fuji could see that he was actually quite young, probably only a couple years older than Fuji. His eyes were passionate, and they had reason. He was getting so worked up. "You will pay for killing my sister!" he shouted, bringing a short blade down on Fuji's sword. Fuji raised an eyebrow.

"Your sister?" he answered. "You mean that assassin in the woods who kept attacking the castle a couple weeks ago?"

The attacker nodded, though still keeping up his persistency. "You killed her!"

Fuji shook his head, blocking the other's attacks easily. "It wasn't me that killed her. And she was the one to attack us first."

"You're a prince, right?" the attacker had to shout through all the commotion around the two.

Fuji tapped his chin with the hand that wasn't holding the sword, which seemed to annoy his opponent. "I guess you could call me that," Fuji said mysteriously. "Why, what cause is your village fighting for? It can't possibly be just the girl."

Fuji's opponent shook his head. "No, it's not. We're fighting for the cause of the magician."

It was Fuji's turn to be shocked now. "The magician?"

"Our village has always been against the policy of the most powerful magician only living to serve the princes, ever since one of our villagers turned out to be the magician, and he was always enslaved to the princes. He never looked happy when he came back to visit the village, and his eyes, which had been so bright before, were always shaded and distant. It was almost as if he was thinking, 'I'd rather be somewhere else' all the time."

Fuji's moment of surprise caused him to be tripped, though he flipped over and landed smoothly on the ground behind the attacker, who was facing Fuji in an instant. "So _that's_ your cause," Fuji said. He was surprised that _anyone_ opposed the princes, but he was even more surprised that they were actually on the most powerful magician's side. That was supposed to be Fuji himself! They were fighting for _his_ cause!

Fuji shook his head. No. He wasn't the most powerful magician. He was someone totally different. It didn't matter to him who he fought for, whether it was the princes or whether it was for himself. It was an honor to be the most powerful magician at all. He didn't dare oppose the princes, and even if he wanted to, he wouldn't. The princes were his friends. It didn't matter what the other magicians thought generations back, but this time, everything was different. They had known each other from childhood, Fuji and the princes. They were his family, and he loved them. He didn't care if he had to fight for them all his life; he'd do anything for them. That was why Fuji was a completely different person than the one he was reincarnated from. And that was the way Fuji wanted it to be.

In a moment, Fuji was behind the attacker, bringing out his stronger side, with the tip of his blade against the assassin's neck. "I'm sorry about your sister," Fuji started. "But as for the princes, they're my friends. I don't care if I have to fight with them or for them for my entire life. I'd do anything for them; they've already done too much for me," he said.

The assassin gasped. "You're—" but that was all he got to say before he was on the ground, dead.

Fuji shook his head, sadly. "Sorry," he said again. He looked around. Many of the assassins were dead, and so were many of the warriors fighting under royalty. Fuji sighed. Why did this have to happen? Why couldn't everyone live in peace? In his heart, though, he felt a pang because now he knew that they were fighting for his cause. Both forces. But first, he had to find the other princes.

The silence of death fell across the battlefield, as Fuji stepped around trees and the occasional body. There really hadn't been as many people as Fuji thought, but for some reason, they had all seemed to be aiming for Atobe and him. Really, why had they cared so much about that girl? She wasn't that strong, and neither was her brother, though they were more skilled than the others.

Fuji heard a rustle of leaves behind him, and he whipped around with his sword still in his hand. He wasn't sure if the rustle had been one of the princes or another assassin from the village. Fuji stepped through the forest even more silently now, cringing at every crack of the leaves.

Fuji heard another rustle, and suddenly, a sword came down on his powerfully. He held the sword that Yukimura had made for him with both hands and parried the other sword off, though barely. Fuji scarcely had time to gasp for breath as the sword was brought down again and he was forced to fight. Who was attacking him at a time like this? Fuji turned around and was finally face to face with his opponent, who was none other than the chief of the village. He was still alive? Of course, Fuji thought, clenching his teeth.

"Was it you?" the chief said quietly. From his voice, Fuji could tell that he was young, too, probably not even three years older than the person he had been fighting before. The chief looked like he was in his mid twenties, though he was strong for it.

"What are you talking about?" Fuji said during a rare break in the clashing of swords.

"My brother and sister, it was you, wasn't it?" he said through his teeth.

Ah, Fuji thought. So the three were brothers and sister? Why was the chief so much more powerful than the other two? The eldest son in their village must have gotten the advantage of tutoring and training to become the chief. But why was he chief already? His parents must be dead. Or at least his father. "So you were all related?" Fuji asked.

"It_was_ you!" his opponent said. "You'll pay with your own life, prince!"

"They were the ones who attacked me first! And the girl wasn't even my fault." Fuji was slowly being pushed back with the attacks of the chief. The brunette finally saw an opening and attacked with his sword, only to be blocked by the same barrier that had blocked Oshitari's arrow so effortlessly. The hood fell off of the chief then, revealing his hair and face. His hair was black and long, past his shoulders, and it flowed nicely. His face was handsome, but that didn't distract Fuji.

The dark haired one smirked. "I'm supposed to be the most powerful magician. I _am_ the most powerful magician in the land. Everyone acknowledges it. But for some reason, this generation, there was a turn of events. Somehow, someone else was chosen to be that magician instead of me. No one even knows him or her. Just because they're the son or daughter of the last magician doesn't mean that they will be powerful, too! And on top of that, they ran away! No one knows even what this person looks like! Just like a coward…they don't deserve to be the magician."

"Is that the reason you lied to your village?" Fuji asked seriously. The chief looked shocked for a moment. "You told your village to fight against the princes for the cause of a magician from your village generations back. That magician doesn't exist, does he? You just made up that story so you could convince your villagers to fight against the princes to support you being the magician," Fuji said. "You don't deserve to be the chief. Pitting your villagers, who you know will die, against the princes for your own sake. Even your brother and sister."

The chief gave Fuji a dark look. "They should've been trained better."

Fuji glanced at the chief. "Is that all you can say?!" he shouted, putting more effort into his swings. But still, he couldn't get a hit in because of that barrier.

"It doesn't matter. Once I vanquish you and all the other princes, and find that damned magician, then this land will be mine!" He seemed to think for a moment. "Who knows, if that magician is a lady, perhaps I can ask for her hand in marriage."

That last statement almost made Fuji laugh out loud. He would've, if he hadn't been so caught up in not getting killed. Fuji also would've asked him what he would do if it was a boy, but he didn't. He couldn't let the chief know he was holding back at all. He had to make it look like he was really getting pushed back. He could keep up against the chief for hours, but he still couldn't get through the barrier. That was something that he couldn't do. He needed something otherworldly to get through the barrier…it had to have been constructed out of some magic that wasn't known in this world anymore. If the chief knew that Fuji was holding back, then he might further increase his barrier, making it even harder for Fuji to break through.

---------------------------------

Atobe walked around the battlefield in silence, maneuvering around trees and bodies on the ground. Occasionally, he would pick up the sword of a fallen mercenary, if he thought that it might have value, but he didn't want to slow himself down more than necessary. The villagers hadn't proved to be that much of a threat, considering that the castle itself had remained unharmed. Sure, a lot of their warriors were gone, but they could be replaced.

He walked around, looking for Fuji and the other princes. If he had survived without putting that much effort into it, than the other princes should still be alive, too. Suddenly, the silence was broken by a loud clash of metal against metal. There were still people alive fighting? It must be the chief of the village. Who was he fighting against? It had to be once of the princes. He knew all of the princes' fighting style, so he could easily tell who it was based upon how frequent the clashing sounds were. But this time, he couldn't tell. The fighting style was completely foreign. There could only be one explanation for that: Fuji. The chief of the village was fighting against _Fuji_.

Atobe's walking turned into a sprint; a mad dash to find Fuji. Would he be alright? They were deep in the forest surrounding the castle, and Atobe could tell because the metal sounds sounded distant. He wouldn't get there on time, and by the time he got there, someone would probably already be dead. He had caught a glance at the chief before, and he had some kind of barrier that was otherworldly and it couldn't be broken through. Was Fuji going to be alright?

Atobe changed the direction of his running, skidding and turning sharply. He was headed toward the castle's throne room, where he could get a good look at the forest. The trees were so dense there that they couldn't possibly be fighting in the middle of it. Atobe dashed up the stairs of the castle, running into the throne room where all of the princes were already waiting. "Where's Fujiko?!" Saeki shouted as soon as the saw that Atobe was alone.

"No time to speak right now," Atobe said, running for the window and practically leaning over it so that he'd fall if he leaned a centimeter more. "Fuji's out there, fighting against the only remaining member of the village: the chief!"

With those words, everyone rushed to the windows, looking for Fuji. Atobe spotted a clearing in the forest where they used to train a lot, and sure enough, there were two figures fighting there, leaping around and bouncing off of trees. Atobe could tell which one was Fuji from the clothes and appearance. He was being pushed back, but the prince couldn't tell if he was faking it or not. After all, when they would train with each other, sometimes Fuji just wouldn't try his hardest. Atobe could clearly see, though, that Fuji couldn't break through the barrier that surrounded the dark haired chief. The shield was otherworldly.

Atobe thought for a moment. If the barrier was otherworldly, then they would need something otherworldly to break it. _Every_ _barrier could be broken somehow_. It was just a matter of finding out how. Otherworldly. Something otherworldly. The arts of creating that kind of barrier were lost long ago. How did the chief know them? And if he knew them, why weren't any of the other villagers using the arts? It was probably some kind of mana issue. But that wasn't what he should've been thinking about at that moment. He should be thinking about how to break the barrier before Fuji got killed.

He glanced at Fuji and the chief again. The chief wasn't going to run away until he killed every one of the princes, Atobe figured, because he hadn't run away yet. He turned away from the window, much to the surprise of the other princes, and glanced around the room. It was then that he found his answer. Atobe sprinted out of the throne room and to his own room, grabbing his bow and arrows even faster than Eiji had if he would've teleported there. He was back in the throne room sooner than the other princes found it possible.

Atobe took one of his arrows and carefully removed the head. He walked over to the mirror, which still lay in pieces on the ground. He picked up a nice, sharp, shard and started to attach it to the arrow. The mirror transported people through the worlds. It must be enough to break the barrier. If it didn't work, then there was nothing that he could do. He didn't have anything to lose.

"You're going to use the mirror?" Yukimura asked.

"What choice do we have?" Atobe replied, and the princes fell silent in anticipation. He strung the arrow and pulled it back, aiming for the chief's upper body through the window. This was where his powers had to pull through. He had to anticipate the chief's next move, or else he wouldn't be able to hit him. Fuji was still being pushed back, slowly, but surely. His opponent would make the next offensive move. If they stayed predictable like this, then…_Exorcise_, Atobe thought, and released the arrow.

* * *

Cliffhanger! The next chapter awaits! Please be courteous and review before you fave/alert! Thanks for all your support! 


	13. Chapter 13: The Meaning of Strength

**Mirror, Mirror**

**Summary:** Fuji falls through a mirror one day and lands in a complete different world. Sometimes, while doing a favor for someone else, you realize that they're actually doing a favor for you.

**Warnings:** Shounen-ai

**Pairings: **Atobe x Fuji

**Disclaimer:** Prince of Tennis is not mine.

Last chapter, guys! Thank you for all your support, and I'm glad I remembered to update today. xDD Didn't want to leave you guys hanging. The last chapter really ended on a cliffie, huh? xD So, anyway, thanks a TON to my reviewers, and thanks to the readers, too. I'm sorry to those anonymous reviews that I can't reply to, but I replied to everything that wasn't anonymous, I think! So, for the last chapter of this fanfiction, please read, review, and enjoy!

**Chapter 13: The Meaning of Strength:**

Fuji was still fighting against the chief of the hidden village, bouncing from tree to tree, with the chief chasing him. He knew he would have to face him sometime, but he chose to delay it, just fighting off the swings of the chief's sword. Suddenly, he saw an arrow rushing through the air. It had been one of the princes' doings. Were they stupid? They knew the arrow couldn't hit the chief. Fuji glanced at the chief, and in an instant, there was an arrow embedded in his left shoulder, and he was holding it in pain.

Fuji stared, and the chief's eyes squeezed shut for a moment as he clenched his teeth together. "H-how…" he choked out. Fuji stepped up to the chief, who slashed his sword in vain to try to keep Fuji away. He pulled the arrow out of his own shoulder, and Fuji got a good look at it as the blood dripped off. It was… a mirror shard?! One of the princes had used a shard of the broken mirror to break through the barrier of the chief. _Otherworldly_…the word rang through Fuji's mind. Of course! The mirror transported people between worlds, so it had to be otherworldly! He knew it had been Atobe's doing…no other prince would have been able to predict the chief's moves that well, and no other prince would've hit from that distance.

"N-not fair, it was—two on one…" the chief managed to say, picking up his sword and holding it at Fuji's chin. The wound in his shoulder healed quickly, and soon, the chief was standing strong once again, but only one thing changed, and that was the thing Fuji needed to change. The barrier was gone. Now, he could go all out again. The chief ran at Fuji, intent on killing him once and for all.

"It wasn't two on one," Fuji said. "You had a barrier created from the lost arts. Now, they are lost once and for all. Perhaps this is how the magician felt…the strongest one so long ago that created the magical orb. Perhaps he felt that it was unfair for all those princes to be fighting against him alone. But the world isn't fair. That was why he was the strongest magician.

"I cannot tell the princes not to attack you. They're too far away. They may attack; they may not. But I can tell you one thing," Fuji said, dancing around the chief nimbly, pushing him back this time. Still, he was not showing his true effort. The chief was still on the offensive, but his swings were being easily countered and parried, and Fuji's swings almost looked offensive. "There are nine princes up there in that castle."

The chief's eyes narrowed. "Lies. You're a prince. There can't be nine in the castle."

Fuji turned his head toward the castle, and the chief didn't even bother to try and attack him. "Count them. They're all gathered at the windows." And indeed, there were nine faces. He turned toward the chief and they began attacking each other again.

"Then who the hell are you?!" the chief demanded. "You…toying with me the entire time?!"

Fuji smiled. "Me? I'm a magician." He thrust his sword out and picked up the chief by the collar with the tip of his sword so that the tip was pointed dangerously at the top of the chief's neck near his chin. The chief tried to grab the sword, but his hands were instantly burned. "I can tell you something else. I don't care if I am in servitude of the princes, because I'm indebted to them. I don't care if I have to fight alongside them my entire life," Fuji repeated. "But of course, that's not what you want to know, is it?" Fuji grabbed the chief by his neck and brought his sword down. "I certainly don't care about you. Not one bit. You know why? Because I'm _not_ running away. I was sent away. It wasn't my choice. I didn't run away.

"Now that I'm here, I'll gladly protect our kingdom from people like you; people who want to rid the princes from the throne. People who want to take over. They obviously can't do it. Even those who enhance their skills with the lost arts have trouble." Fuji raised his sword and held the broad side of it to the chief's cheek, holding it there and leaving it burning. "You're looking to vanquish the princes? Good luck with that. And you're looking for the most powerful magician's hand in marriage?" Fuji laughed. "I'm right here."

The chief looked at Fuji with wide, shocked eyes. "You're—" he started, but was interrupted.

"Funny," Fuji said. "Those were your brother's last words, too." And with one fell sweep of Fuji's arm, the chief was beheaded on the spot. The body didn't fall limp on the ground, though. Instead, it vanished into thin air, as did the head. "Hnn…" he hummed. "No wonder that person could use the lost arts. His body was inhabited by a demon's soul. I do feel bad for the person who had been in that body before…he was probably a good chief. I suppose that's what happens to you." And with those words, Fuji strode toward the castle.

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"A demon in a human's body, huh?" Atobe said, sitting on Fuji's bed that night. Atobe and Fuji had continued their night meetings, sometimes sleeping in each other's rooms when they were too lazy to go back to their own rooms even though they were just a couple steps away.

"Yeah. The chief had probably some time ago been captured and taken over by a demon's soul," Fuji replied. "I feel bad for the previous chief, though. His son went through all of this, and he didn't even get to see it. The village didn't even notice it until they were wiped out." A sigh escaped Fuji's mouth.

"At least we're all safe," Atobe said.

"Speaking of which, how is Seiichi?" Fuji asked curiously.

Atobe shook his head. "He's resting in his room and Jiroh is taking care of him, but he probably won't be able to use much magic ever again."

Fuji brought his hands to his mouth and his eyes widened. "No…" Atobe wrapped an arm around Fuji, comforting him. "Why did he do this? Why did he have to do it?"

"Syusuke, it was for our own sakes. He did it to help the princes."

Fuji shook his head this time. "You both risked so much…and you both gave so much. For each other." Fuji looked up at Atobe. "You summoned Seiichi and you from my world so that they wouldn't have to pass through the mirror. If you hadn't, then Seiichi probably wouldn't be alive right now. And yet, you two both were able to hold all the pain and suffering in. I don't care if the mirror is shattered; when I think about it like this, you are much stronger than me."

Atobe rubbed Fuji's back. "Strong means different things to different people. You can think of strong any way you want. The truly strong ones are the ones who can decide what the word really means to them."

"Where did you hear that from?" Fuji asked Atobe, clearly being able to tell that it wasn't something made up on the spot.

"My father," Atobe answered.

"Your father? Where is he now? Where are all the parents?"

"Well, since there are only princes in this land and no princesses, when the parents have daughters, then the daughters are sent off to a different world all at once to become the princesses of that land when they are around five or six. The sons never meet the daughters, though sometimes they're told stories about them. Normally, the king of the land is chosen to use his mana and send the daughters off to a different world, but this time, the king of the land, your father, used all his mana to send you very far away so that you were never found. The farther away you send someone, the more mana you use. Also, the more people that are sent away, the more mana you use. The king usually sends a lot of girls away to a closer world, but he also dies from that.

"As a replacement for the king to send the girls off to a different land, my father was chosen," Atobe explained.

"Oh," Fuji said quietly. His hand trailed across the tassels on the edge of the decorative blanket on top of his bed. The golden woven strings felt soft to the touch.

"You don't have to feel sorry for me," Atobe said. "I knew it was coming." He put his hand over Fuji's, stopping the absentminded action.

"And your mother?" Fuji said, changing the subject.

"My mother lives in the castle." Atobe's thumb ran over the top of Fuji's hand. His skin was as soft as silk and it fit perfectly into Atobe's hand.

"Really?"

"She works as a servant in disguise. She was one of the few who actually knew about the curse, and she directed outsiders and visitors away from the castle, or away from where we are, so that they don't find out about it. None of our other parents found out about the curse, and my mother reasoned with them so that we could live in this castle alone. No one knows about her working here, except for you, Seiichi, and Eiji."

"Are you going to point her out to me sometime?" Fuji teased. "She will be my troublesome mother in law."

Atobe laughed. "She's not troublesome at all. She's very kind. I'm sure she'll love you." Atobe took Fuji's hand and brought it up to his lips, kissing the fingers affectionately.

"I'm sure my mother would've loved all of you, too," Fuji said gently, picking up the frame of the picture sitting on his nightstand with his other hand. It was the picture of him, his mother and father, and Yukimura playing in the grassy clearing of the forest that he had defeated the chief of the hidden village in that day. He scooted closer to Atobe and leaned a head on his shoulder while continuing to stare at the picture with mixed emotions. He felt that he wanted to meet his mother and father, but at the same time, he thought it might've been better for him if they weren't there. Did it make him stronger? Fuji didn't know. He didn't know the meaning of strength for himself. He wasn't truly strong yet. But that wasn't something that he couldn't change.

Fuji yawned and Atobe noticed it. "Tired?" he asked, stroking Fuji's hair tenderly.

"A bit," Fuji replied. He rolled to the other side of the bed, lifted the blanket, and tucked himself under the sheets. Atobe got in next to him and wrapped his arms around Fuji. Fuji settled into this comfortable position and closed his eyes. Perhaps someday, he would find the meaning of strength for himself. Then, he would be able to claim that he was truly strong. Perhaps someday…

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Two years later, Fuji was looking through the chest that rested at the foot of his bed. He had been living in the castle for two years now, and he knew a lot of the shortcuts that the princes used to navigate the castle better, and he finally knew his way around, though sometimes, he still got lost or found something new. The servants hadn't done the laundry for a while now, and his clothes seemed to be draining down the bottom of his trunk.

Fuji dug his hand deep into the chest, and he felt something hard. His hand wrapped around it, and carefully, so he didn't mess up all the clothes that had been neatly folded and placed into the trunk, he pulled out the item. It was a tennis racquet. Fuji stared with wide eyes at the racquet; it was like being reacquainted with an old friend. He hadn't seen or touched the racquet for years now, yet it still fell into his hand as if he had used it yesterday.

Slowly, Fuji reached into the trunk again. His hand fell on a soft fabric that was unlike any from this world, and he pulled that out, too. His Seigaku uniform. Under that was his Seigaku tennis jersey, the vivid blue color standing out brightly against all the darker hues of the clothes he wore in the castle.

The princes, since they had gotten their real bodies back, had been venturing outside the castle much more often. Atobe was finally opening his heart a bit, and finally saying what he really thought. He was also getting along a bit better with his twin, Kikumaru, who also made the effort to befriend Atobe once again. Tezuka spoke a lot more often, and on rare occasion, he actually smiled. Yukimura had healed quickly from the mana deprivation, though his magic was indeed limited. He had been training hard in swordsmanship to make up for the magic loss, and he was a better swordfighter now than all of the other princes combined. He could easily beat Atobe now. Ryoma had finally grown out of the small frame and was as tall as Fuji. He was a lot stronger than he had been, too, and the two trained with each other often. Saeki had learned the technique to erase the memory of people, but he dared not to use it.

The items brought back memories of all the fun times he had had in his own world. He reminded himself that he would never go back into that world again. Fuji remembered when he had brought those items into this world, originally planning never to go back to his own world again in the first place. He had placed them at the bottom of his trunk, knowing that if Yukimura had forced him to return to his own world, then the princes would have something to remember him by. Ever since then, in the back of his mind, Fuji knew that he could not venture to the bottom of the trunk, lest he find the items and start breaking down in tears. He eventually forgot about them, though they stayed hidden in his mind somewhere.

Fuji was now able to look at these items and smile, instead of cry. He was able to truly smile. It was a sad smile, but a true, sincere smile nonetheless. He clutched the artifacts to his chest. Fuji was smiling. Laughing even, maybe. He couldn't tell. His fingers traced the familiar embroidering of 'SEIGAKU TENNIS TEAM' on the back of his jersey, something he had done for a long time. He was able to smile and not cry at the sight of these relics. Was that the meaning of strength to him?

Fuji took one last look at the items, removed all the remaining clothing from his trunk, and placed them back at the bottom again neatly. He might find them again another time, and he might not. He placed the clothes in the trunk again just as he had found them. He still had a ways to go before he could be truly strong. But at least this was a start. He remembered the words he had told himself that fateful night two years ago. Perhaps someday…

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The end! Hope you liked the story! And it ended happily! D So...see you next time I write something (which might be a while from now). Thank you very much for all your support! I'm truly grateful! 


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